The Return of the Dancing Master [antikvár]

The plane took off from the aerodrome near London shortly after 2 p.m. It was December 12,1945. It was drizzling and chilly. Occasional gusts set the wind sock fluttering, then all was calm again. The aircraft was a four-engined Lancaster bomber that had made countless sorties over German airspace since it came into service. It had been hit several times by German fighters and forced to make emergency landings, but they had always managed to patch it up and send it back into the fray. Now it was used for transport jobs, taking essential supplies to British troops stationed in defeated and devastated Germany.Mike Garbett, the Flight Lieutenant, had been told that he would fly a passenger to somewhere called Biickeburg. The passenger would then be picked up and flown back to England the following evening. Who he was and why he was going to Germany, Perkins, his immediate superior, did not tell him, nor did he ask. Even though the war was over, he sometimes had the impression that it was still going on. Secret missions were not unusual.After being issued with his flight instructions, he was sitting in one of the messes with officer Peter Foster, and the navigator, Chris Wiffin. They spread out the maps on a table. The airfield was some miles outside the town of Hamelin. Garbett had never been there, but Foster was familiar with it. The approach should not be a problem.