The Forward boasted a one-pounder mounted in front of the superstructure. “Will that thing do any good if the Lizards decide to strafe us?” Groves asked the Coast Guardsman in charge of the weapon.
“About as much as a mouse giving a hawk the finger when the hawk swoops down on it,” the sailor answered. “Might make the mouse feel better, for a second or two, anyhow, but the hawk’s not what you’d call worried.” In spite of that cold-blooded assessment, the man stayed at his post.
The way the Coast Guardsmen handled their jobs impressed Groves. They knew what they needed to do and they did it, without fuss, without spit and polish, but also without wasted motion. Lieutenant van Alen hardly needed to give orders.
The trip across the lake was long and boring. Van Alen invited Groves to take off his pack and stow it in the cabin. “Thank you, Lieutenant, but no,” Groves said. “My orders are not to let it out of my sight at any time, and I intend to take them literally.”
“However you like, sir,” the Coast Guardsman said. He eyed Groves speculatively. “That must be one mighty important cargo.”
“It is.” Groves let it go at that. He wished the heavy pack were invisible and weightless. That might keep people from jumping to such accurate conclusions. The more people wondered about what he was carrying, the likelier word was to get to the Lizards.
As if the thought of the aliens were enough to conjure them out of thin air, he heard the distant scream of one of their jet planes. His head spun this way and that, trying to spot the aircraft through scattered clouds. He saw the contrail, thin as a thread, off to the west.
“Out of Rochester, or maybe Buffalo,” van Alen said with admirable sangfroid.
“Do you think he saw us?” Groves demanded.
“Likely he did,” the Coast Guardsman said. “We’ve been buzzed a couple times, but never shot at. Just to stay on the safe side, we’ll crowd your men down below, where they won t show and look as ordinary as we can for a while. And if you won’t leave that pack in the cabin, maybe you’ll step in yourself for a bit.”
It was as politely phrased an order as Groves had ever heard. He outranked van Alen, but the Coast Guardsman commanded the Forward, which meant authority rested with him. Groves went inside, jammed his face against a porthole. With luck, he told himself the Lizard pilot would go on about his business, whatever that was. Without luck…
The throb of the engines was louder inside, so Groves needed longer to hear the shriek the Lizard plane made. That shriek grew hideously fast. He waited for the one-pounder on the foredeck to start banging away in a last futile gesture of defiance, but it stayed silent. The Lizard plane screamed low overhead. Through the porthole, Groves saw van Alen looking up and waving. He wondered if the Coast Guard lieutenant had gone out of his mind.
But the jet roared away, the scream of its engine fading and dopplering down into a deep-throated wail. Groves hadn’t known he was holding his breath until he let it out in one long sigh. When he couldn’t hear the Lizard plane any more, he went out on deck again. “I thought we were in big trouble there,” he told van Alen.
“Naah.” The Coast Guardsman shook his head. “I figured we were all right as long as they didn’t notice all your men on deck. They’ve seen the Forward out on the lake a good many times, and we’ve never done anything that looks aggressive. I hoped they’d just assume we were out on another cruise, and I guess they did.”
“I admire your coolness, Lieutenant, and I’m glad you didn’t have to show coolness under fire,” Groves said.
“You can’t possibly be half as glad as I am, sir,” van Alen answered. The Coast Guard cutter sailed on toward the Canadian shore.
In the midst of the trees-some bare-branched birches, more dark pine and fir-the ice-covered lake appeared as suddenly as a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. “By Jove,” George Bagnall exclaimed as the Lancaster bomber ducked down below treetop height to make it harder for Lizard radar to pick them up. “That’s a nice bit of navigating, Alf.”
“All compliments gratefully accepted,” Alf Whyte replied. “Assuming that’s actually Lake Peipus, we can follow it straight down to Pskov.”
From the pilot’s seat next to Bagnall, Ken Embry said, “And if it’s not, we don’t know where the bloody hell we are, and we’ll all be good and Pskoved.”
Groans filled the earphones on Bagnall’s head. The flight engineer studied the thicket of gauges in front of him. “It had better be Pskov,” he told Embry, “for we haven’t the petrol to go much farther.”
“Oh, petrol,” the pilot said airily. “We’ve done enough bizarre turns in this war that flying without petrol wouldn’t be that extraordinary.”
“Let me check my parachute first, if you don’t mind,” Bagnall answered.
In fact, though, Embry had a point. The aircrew had been over Cologne on the thousand-bomber raid when Lizard fighters started hacking British planes out of the sky by the score. They’d made it back to England and gone on to bomb Lizard positions in the south of France-where they were hit. Embry had set the crippled bomber down on a deserted stretch of highway by night without smashing or flipping it. If he could do that, maybe he could fly without petrol.
After getting to Paris and being repatriated with German help (that still grated on Bagnall), they’d been assigned to a new Lanc, this one a testbed for airborne radar. Now, the concept being deemed proved, they were flying a set to Russia so the Reds would have a better chance of seeing the Lizards coming.
Ice, ice, close to a hundred miles of blue-white ice, with white snow drifted atop it. From the bomb bay, Jerome Jones, the radarman, said, “I looked up Pskov before we took off. The climate here is supposed to be mild; the proof adduced is that the snow melts by the end of March and the ice on the lakes and rivers in April.”
More groans from the aircrew. Bagnall exclaimed, “If that’s what the Bolshies make out to be a mild climate, what must they reckon harsh?”
“I’m given to understand Siberia has two seasons,” Embry said: “Third August and winter.”
“Good job we have our flight suits on,” Alf Whyte said. “I don’t think there’s another item in the British inventory that would do in this weather.” Below the Lanc, Lake Peipus narrowed to a neck of water, then widened out again. The navigator went on, “This southern bit is called Lake Pskov. We’re getting close.”
“If it’s all one lake, why has it got two names?” Bagnall asked.
“Supply the answer and win the tin of chopped ham, retail value ten shillings,” Embry chanted, like an announcer over the wireless. “Send your postal card to the Soviet Embassy, London. Winners-if there are any, which strikes me as unlikely-will be selected in a drawing at random.”
After another ten or fifteen minutes, the lake abruptly ended. A city full of towers appeared ahead. Some had the onion domes Bagnall associated with Russian architecture, while others looked as if they were wearing witches’ hats. The more modern buildings in town were scarcely worth noticing among such exotics.
“Right-here’s Pskov,” Embry said. “Where’s the bloody airfield?”
Down in the snow-filled streets, people scattered like ants when the Lancaster flew by. Through the bomber’s Perspex windscreen, Bagnall spied little flashes of light. “They’re shooting at us!” he yelled.
“Stupid sods,” Embry snarled. “Don’t they know we’re friendly? Now where’s that bleeding airfield?”
Away to the east, a red flare rose into the sky. The pilot swung the big heavy aircraft in that direction. Sure enough, a landing strip appeared ahead, hacked out of the surrounding forest. “It’s none too long,” Bagnall observed.
“It’s what we’ve got.” Embry pushed forward on the stick. The Lancaster descended. The pilot was one of the best. He set the bomber down at the back edge of the landing strip and used up every inch braking to a stop. The tree trunks ahead were looking very thick and very hard when the Lancaster finally quit moving. Embry looked as if he needed to will himself to let go of the stick, but his voice was relaxed as he said, “Welcome to beautiful, balmy Pskov. You have to be balmy to want to come here.”