LAKE NAHUEL HUAPI, ARGENTINA
9 MARCH, 1943 (10:45 P.M./UTC-3)
* * * * *
Jean-Jacques DeCoteau was a French-Canadian metis who had first flown Sopwith biplanes, for the British Royal Naval Air Service, during World War I. And, following the Armistice, he had become a bush pilot. Purchasing and modifying a war-surplus F.E. 2 night bomber for use as a cargo plane.
Of course, with Prohibition having been enacted in the United States, back then, most of his flights had involved the delivery of contraband whiskey south of the border. And half those flights had entailed his cutting his engines, while still airborne, so he could glide in for a nocturnal landing! But, with the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, he had to find another way to recapture the adrenaline rush of such landings. So, he learned to pilot sailplanes as a member of the American Soaring Society.
Then, came World War II...and the blitzkrieg of London by the Luftwaffe based in Nazi-occupied France.
DeCoteau enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, almost immediately. But, as only commissioned officers could be pilots, the best position the RCAF could offer him was that of crew chief aboard American lend-lease bombers being ferried to England. In mid-1941, however, he was seconded to the RAF as a combination interpreter and drill instructor for their Free French squadrons.
Now, he was on a top-secret mission for SHAEF! Chosen for it partly because of his gliding experience (as a consequence of which he had been given a brevet promotion from sergeant major to flying officer*). And partly because of his fluency in Russian as a third language (which was a consequence of having a Doukhobor wife back home in British Columbia, Canada).
The second requirement had been necessitated by his co-pilot being Senior Lt. Vassily Alexandrov of the Soviet "People's" Air Force.
A Eurasian (Chinese mother/Russian father), who had been born and raised in Vladivostok, he had ironically been trained by the German Luftwaffe in the handling of their DSF-230 glider, prior to Operation: Barbarossa. That training later came in handy when he and other Russian pilots used Antonov A-7 gliders to smuggle badly-needed gasoline to the Soviet tanks defending besieged Stalingrad.
What they were piloting now was an American-built Waco glider. Although, not one of the CG-4's that were soon to prove so crucial in the invasion of Sicily. Rather, it was a modified CG-3 that had been towed from England to Brazil by a Curtis C-46 cargo plane. The same type of aircraft, in fact, that was now serving as their tow plane, after having first flown a certain team of Gurkha commandos from India to Brazil via Liberia, West Africa!
At seventeen minutes of eleven, the American pilot of the C-46 contacted DeCoteau, one last time.
"Mama Bird to Empty Nestling. Mama Bird to Empty Nestling. Approaching point of separation in two minutes. Repeat: point of separation? Two minutes! Over."
"Acknowledged, Mama Bird," DeCoteau replied (via the walkie-talkie he had picked up off the floor): "This is Empty Nestling; over and out."
A moment later, he turned to the younger officer and muttered:
"About bloody time. Nyet, tovarsich lieutenant?"
Alexandrov grinned and nodded: "Da!"
Two minutes later, the tow rope was disengaged. Following which, the C-46 banked into a one hundred eighty degree turn as she flew back to the Brazilian town of Pernambuco. Meanwhile, the Waco CG-3.5 began its descent from a height of thirty thousand feet. And, with a sink rate of four hundred feet per minute, that gave them roughly an hour and a quarter in which to locate the targeted island; circle it in ever-lower and narrower spirals; and then be guided into a (hopefully safe) landing by their two pathfinders.
* * * * *
ISLA UTGARD,
10 MARCH, 1943
(12:00 A.M./UTC-3)
Alfie had spotted the glider, first, courtesy of his infra-red snooperscope. He promptly said as much to Brevet Captain Phillips, who then began clicking his flashlight skyward, in the Morse Code pattern for the letters "C" and "Q." That signal was, in turn, spotted by DeCoteau, who promptly informed Alexandrov. The latter then ordered the former to tell the Gurkhas to make sure they were all strapped in. Because they were about to start their final approach!
Five minutes later, the CG-3.5 (which had been modified to resemble an old Consolidated Commodore flying boat minus the engines) briefly splashed through the shallows of the target island's western shore...before coming to a stop on the muddy sand.
Whereupon, Alexandrov looked at DeCoteau, gave a thumb's up, and quipped (in one of the few English phrases he knew):
"All ashore that is go-ink ashore."
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
There will be some giantess action in the next chapter. I promise!
Chapter End Notes:
*Flying officer: RAF equivalent of second lieutenant.
Doukobhor: Russian Orthodox version of the Quaker and Amish faiths (with regard to being pacifistic).
Doukobhor: Russian Orthodox version of the Quaker and Amish faiths (with regard to being pacifistic).