"Sean McMullen - The Devils of Langenhagen" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMullen Sean)

"You are my little heroic knight, Sir Willy," she said as she put the blanket away. "You will go back
into battle with my name on your lips and my favour at your heart." She produced a lace handkerchief
and held it to her lips.
"Now, Sir Willy, accept Lady Astrid's favour." She put her handkerchief into my breast pocket-- and
the alert siren sounded!
I was scrambling away over the rubble before I realised that I had not said thank you or goodbye.
Blundering through a group of deportees I reached my hangar in time to see Guber's Lightning and
Gestner's flying-wing roaring down the dispersal track. I was last into the air, and when I joined Reissel
and Weber the two experimental fighters were nowhere to be seen.
"We three will attack together," Reissel said over the radio as we climbed through a bank of clouds.
"Those two lunatics can do whatever they wish in their experimental contraptions."
Just then we rose clear of the cloud. For a moment the sky above seemed clear, then Weber's jet
exploded in a shower of rockets and Reissel's port turbine belched black smoke. The two experimental
fighters plunged past us into the clouds below.
"What in hell?" screamed Reissel. "Are they mad?"
I suddenly thought of the favour handkerchief in my pocket. Like medieval knights they were
challenging us to a duel.
"They want to fight us, Major," I called over the radio.
"To fight? But they are Germans, like us."
"I know-- maybe not, though. Here they come." Reissel had no margin of speed over the Guber's
Lightning now that one turbine had been shot up. I rolled and dove for the clouds as the flying-wing came
for me, but began climbing again as soon as I was out of sight, hoping to return and assist Reissel.
As I returned to the clear air I found that an American Mustang had appeared from somewhere and
was raking the Lightning with cannon fire as it pursued Reissel's crippled jet. Guber tried to break off and
climb, but it was now his own engine trailing black smoke, and the American pilot had no trouble keeping
up and pouring shells into the canard. I noticed Reissel dive into the clouds and escape.
Now the Horten climbed out of the clouds below me, and I shouted crazily into the radio. Guber's
canard Lightning exploded under the Mustang's onslaught, then the fireball, smoke and wreckage
vanished entirely! I shouted again, feeling the panic take hold of me, then recovered to become a veteran
fighter pilot again. There was no question of which of the two planes to engage. I cut across to one side
of Gestner as the Mustang dived almost vertically for the clouds to get clear of the two jets.
The Horten had an incredibly small turning circle, and he was easily able to break inside my turn, but
his timing was poor, and his shots went wide. I followed the American's example and plunged for the
clouds with my nose pointing straight down. This time I made no attempt to pull out of the dive until I was
well below the cloud mass. Gestner emerged some distance away, and turned at once to follow me as I
began climbing. His rate of climb was like that of an Me 163 rocket fighter, just as I had hoped. I
throttled back once in the cloud layer, then pushed the throttle right forward as I returned to the clear air.
We came out of the cloud at almost the same moment, and before he realised that I had slowed down so
very much, he was ahead of me and in my sights.
I poured three quarters of my rockets after him as he drew away. Small fragments tore from his
fuselage and one of his engines trailed ruddy flames and smoke. We climbed in a spiral, and he kept
trying to break and cut across my path. My jet was undamaged and faster, and each time I was able to
break and roll away from him. As he changed his mind and tried to dive, I sent the last of my rockets
after him, and one shattered his port wingtip. I dived, determined to catch him before he reached the
cover of the clouds. My speed climbed to 600 mph, then edged past, and the Messerschmitt began
pitching and shuddering violently as the speed exceeded its design. Gestner banked very sharply, and I
followed, the G forces crushing me into blackness as the jet's endurance passed mine.
I squeezed off more cannon shells as my field of vision became a tunnel and all colours flowed into
blue, violet, then black. The dim outline of the Horten expanded into a great sheet that became the entire
sky and closed to enfold me, then I was... stretched. In all directions. There are no other words to