Alternate Generals II

The procession extended twenty-five miles for the flyover at Buckingham Palace on this, the first a

You saw them first, a blot upon the sky. Then their roar shook the ground, the kind that throttled your throat, shook the heart in your chest.

Pride of place went to Hitler's bombers. The HE 111s' cut-out wing roots gave them a distinctive silhouette, unlike the JU 88s, looking from the ground u

Only then came the ME 109s, radiators whistling. Hard- lined, vicious shapes, ingeschwader strength, they peppered the low cast sky for miles.

A lull, then, on the horizon with a signature purring you need only hear once to know immediately, advanced British Rolls Royce engines-aschwarm of Hurricanes in Nazi colors. Stable gun platforms, those. The Hurricanes had delivered a convincing punch to their erstwhile adversaries, and they could take a beating. Shooting them was like shooting a wicker basket. But the Hurri was not a nimble crate. With Spitfires cleared from the sky, the ME 109s had chewed them up.

Next came the Spitfires, emblazoned with swastikas. A single surviving vic of them liberated from the crushed RAF. The lead craft wore a Geshwadercommodore's stripes and a Micky Mouse emblem on his cowling. That one broke formation and rolled.

Unexpected. Herma

Elegant, agile crates. The Spitfire was the ME 109's graceful, Brita

"Pretty kites," someone said.

Apparently too pretty for Air Chief Marshal Dowding to use. The stingy man had only sent a handful of them to France to aid his allies. True, he had only a few Spitfires at any one time, but he hoarded all he had. For what? A rainy day? The storm had come!

And this the man who wrote a book on how the battle for Britain should have been run?

Nothing, thought Herma

U

Slow. They were slow. But once England spent her Spitfires and Hurricanes, there had been nothing to stop these slow monsters from lining up their attack runs from up high. And once they bunted over, nothing could hit a Stuka in a dive. The dive-bombers had picked off the ships of the proud British Navy at will, clearing the way for invasion.

All the fibres in his body quivered with pain as though he was burning alive at the utter horror of the sight. The Stukas blotted out the meagre sun.

Someone who had seen an American cinema said, "Run Toto, run!" The Stukas became flying monkeys in a little girl's nightmare. Yes, that was it. This was all u

Still trembling in the lull that followed the horrific Stukas, he had to acknowledge the logistical feat involved in this procession. There were airfields and assembly areas to organize, times aloft and varying speeds and ranges of aircraft to be calculated. Times required to reach altitude. All the difficulties of Big Wings.

Of course, these pilots knew exactly where they were going, and no one was even shooting at them.

Next, perhaps most hideous of all, came a lopsided vic-one Lancaster, one Hurricane, and one Spitfire-in red, white, and black.

The program called them the Fuhrer's Flight.

Vision blurred as he tried to watch them pass over the palace-blurred the swastikas from the heroic shapes, blurred the colours back to those they had worn in defense of Britain.

Bleary gaze dropped to the balcony.

He saw Union Jack buntings in place of Nazi flags. And instead of that evil man, a queen in a green dress. And in place of Reichsmarschall Goering, a very pretty princess.

And down below, within the palace gates in those chairs where Hitler's favored sat, a bunch of old men called the Few.

He did not know what the Few were. The word just popped into his grief-addled head along with the thought that it was fifty years later and he was dead.

He had become quietly unhinged.

He fled, pushing through the crowds with barely audible requests for pardon.

His picture and his name had long since disappeared from the press, so he was not a widely known figure anymore. He passed unrecognized and scarcely noticed. He was not the first grown man to leave the aerial display in tears.

Herma

"The publisher turned it over to us, Herr Reichsmarschall."

Stopped the big man mid-strut. "He ispublishing it!"

"Trying to. Yes, Herr Reichsmarschall."

"Would anyone take this Dowding seriously?"

"Difficult to say. Herr Dowding is not a particularly lovable figure. His most influential supporter-one Keith Park, very popular fellow-went down with his boys in the battle."

"So the man is not lovable," Goering dismissed that. "His words-are they dangerous or lunatic?"

"I… haven't the English to say."

"Then get English!" Goering bellowed. "Tell me what all this says!" Gestured about with his baton. "Briefly!"

The Oberstleutnant glanced sorrowfully at the scattered pages of angels. Noted with some small relief that Herr Dowding was a detailed, exacting man and had the pages numbered and clearly typed.

"Tell me if what he says in this book could make sense to anyone, or does Hugh Dowding come off the complete fool he seems to me. No use shooting an old man unless we have to. Someone could decide he was lovable!"

Hugh Dowding moved without direction, oblivious to his surroundings until his soles crunched on a pavement aglitter with glass shards.

He lifted his gaze to a storefront. Had been this way before, yet was slow to recognize the jeweler's shop where Sarah's young man had bought the ring with which he had asked for her hand. The shop was dark within, all chaos and ruin.

He stepped carefully through the gaping opening that should have been a window. "Mr. Rose? Mr. Rose?" Searched the shambles.

A curt bark from the street: "Here now! You there!You there! " The silhouette of a bobby at the window. "I see you! Out with you now!"

Hugh Dowding picked his way back through the glass and splinters to the window. Inquired, "Mr. Rose. Where is Mr. Rose?"

The bobby sized him up. Decided the older gent was not the looter he had first taken him for. "Here now." Reached over the sill for Dowding's elbow. "Mind the step."

"Did Mr. Rose get out before this happened? Is he well?"

"I wouldn't worry about that much, sir, if I were you. Move along now." He motioned with his nightstick. The armband, de rigueur these days for men in uniform, waved a spidery cross.

Hugh Dowding hurried home.

Lights in all the windows welcomed him. The door opened to an oasis in the horror of the day, the house warm and alive with gay feminine chatter. Sarah and her bridesmaids practiced hooking that eternal train of satin onto Sarah's bustle.

Sarah turned at her father's entrance. Beamed, showing off her assemblage. "What do you think?"

Tears again. Found his wife at his side. His arm fit naturally around her waist. "Clarice, can this vision possibly be mine?"

She gave his chest a tender slap. "No one else's."