Resistance (6 page)

Right waist to pilot.
Harriet W.
is off to the right.

Roger, right waist. Tail gunner, what have we got back there?

Tail to pilot. Our wingman is about three hundred yards back and down off the right wing. Two other 17s about a quarter mile out to your right.

Thanks, tail gunner.

Ball turret to pilot. Contrails.

Roger, ball turret.

Ted thought of Warren in the turret. Five, six, nine hours in as cramped a position as Ted could imagine. A view straight down with nothing but the earth below you. And if the turret jammed, which it sometimes did, the gunner was a prisoner then and had to endure whatever fate dealt him: the plane hit and going down with no chance to bail out; a belly landing in which he would be flattened. The worst position in the crew.

Left waist to pilot. The wing ship has peeled off. Looks like she's aborting.

Roger.

Tail gunner to pilot. We have another formation at three o'clock high.

Thanks. Keep your eye on them.

Over the Channel, he heard Shulman give the order to test fire the guns. There were bursts of fire, and Ted could smell the smoke passing through the flight deck.

Right waist to pilot. We've lost another ship. She's feathering her prop.

Navigator to pilot. Enemy coast.

Roger. Pilot to all crew. Flak jackets.

He remembered they had just rendezvoused with the escorts, and that his back was hurting from the ceaseless vibrating of the plane. He could smell, he thought, the peculiar acrid scent of the radio emanating from the compartment. And then it was Rees who yelled, or maybe it was Ekberg in the tail. No, it had to have been Rees, and they were hit, shockingly soon, the concussion so severe Ted bit his tongue, and his mouth filled with blood.

The intercom and the skies exploded.

Bandits three o'clock high. Jesus Christ. Shit. Where're the goddamn fighters? FW at twelve o'clock level. Bursts of machine-gun fire. We're in the fight field now. Fuck, my gun is jammed. I saw him, he was hit. He was smoking. Holy Christ. The plane was pummeled, buffeted. White bursts of flame. The escort fighters with them now. Beautiful—look at that. An FW made a pass in front of the cockpit, guns blasting. Knock the pilot out, disable the plane, that's the ticket.
Lady-in-waiting's
taken a hit, sir. Jesus Christ, they've severed the wing. She's going down. Count the chutes. Stay in formation. The sun was in his eyes. A hit, a blow that could break a spine. But he didn't know from where. Right waist, call in. Tail, call in. Where's the hit? Just above the bomb bay, sir. Four minutes to the Reich. The navigator, Baker, reporting calmly, plotting coordinates, what was he writing with, for God's sake? Ball turret to pilot. A 17 in the low squadron on fire. Left wing on fire and diving away. Fighters! Three o'clock level. Son of a bitch. There was blood splattered on the windshield. Case was screaming. He was hit in the arm. Case was scrunched down below the instrument panel. Behind him, Rees was laughing maniacally. I got one, I got one. That's only a probable, Rees. Shit no, I got him, no probable about it. Case, white-faced, was vomiting. Tripp, get up here with a tourniquet. Case has been hit. Jesus Christ. We're on fire, sir. Tripp tearing bandage cloth with his teeth. Callahan with the fire extinguisher. Shit, the little friends are turning back. Stay in formation. The sun was in his eyes. The squadron was on its own now.

Jerry, from the east, always had the advantage. Ten Me-109s out of the sun. Oh my God, look at that. Jesus, they're hitting the high squadron. We've had it now. Hail Mary, Mother of God … They're cutting them down like flies. B-17s—hit, exploding. Falling in front of his eyes. Ted dove suddenly and steeply. Everything loose in the plane hitting metal. The gunners pinned against the bulkheads, lips flattened back over their teeth. No one could speak. Then pulling out, leveling off, climbing again. Jesus Christ, what was that? A near miss with a falling Fortress. Bring her up. Rejoin the formation. The Me's going for the low squadron now. My gun is jammed. He couldn't identify the gunner. Left waist call in. The German fighters pulling away. Dull whoosh of flak. He could smell the cordite. They must be near the target. Flak jackets and helmets. They didn't have to be told a second time. Panic, pounding, the shrapnel like a shower of marbles on the metal skin. Screaming in the intercom. Two of the guns had frozen.

Old Gold
was dropping back.

What?

There was Baker to talk to, and Shulman in the nose. Is she hit? I don't think so. You see a fire? Nothing I can see. Losing altitude? Maybe a little. Break radio silence? I can't. Why wasn't Old Gold calling him? Why wasn't
Old Gold
telling him to take over the lead? The radio shot out? Possibly. His orders were to follow the lead. He had to do it, throttle back, break formation. Would the others follow? This was suicide. He broke silence then. Had to.
Old Gold,
this is
Woman's Home Companion.
Do you read me? Silence. Come in
Old Gold.
Are you hit? Silence. He was angry now, yelling.
Old Gold,
son of a bitch, what's going on? Silence. The radio was out. The lead plane was losing altitude now, but why?

Old Gold
banked slightly, and they saw it.

Her fuel was pouring out, a splash of pale ink across the sky. The plane was dropping faster now. They saw the chutes. One, two, three. They waited. Four… five … They waited. Only five. The plane, a thousand feet below them, dipped its wing and lurched onto its back.

For a moment, there was silence over the intercom.

Navigator to pilot. Sir, we're sitting ducks. You've got to get us out of here.

Case was bent over at the waist. We can make it to the Channel, Brice. We can ditch. For Christ's sake, don't go down here.

Bombardier to pilot. We've got to rejoin the formation.

Ted throttled up, pushed his plane as hard as he dared. The navigator plotting coordinates, trying to calculate how long they had to rejoin. Ted fixing the mixture; they'd lost precious fuel of their own in the fuckup. Scanning the skies till his eyes burned. They were all doing it. Without the formation, they were as vulnerable as a baby. Someone over the intercom was crying. He couldn't make out who. Case still bent over, his head below the instrument panel, retching again on the floor.

Ted looked up. The sky was ablaze—theatrical and wondrous. He thought he had never seen so many fighters. They were silver, sparkling in the sun. He had in his mind the image of hunting dogs with a fox.

Ripping it to shreds.

There was screaming on the intercom. Right waist to pilot. The tail's been hit, sir. A crack, a new vibration in the controls—severe on the rudder pedals. The control cables were damaged. Losing altitude. Put the nose down to avoid a stall. Pilot to rear gunner. Check in. Silence. Rear, check in. Silence. Left waist, check on Ekberg. Callahan moving toward the tail. Left waist to pilot. We've been hit bad. Pieces are flying off the tail. And Ekberg? I dunno, sir. Not a scratch on him. I can't see any blood. Concussion? I think so, sir. OK, pull him into the waist. Get back to your gun. Another hit and another. Everything falling. Everything pummeling. The instrument casings shattered. A direct hit on number-four engine. Feather the propeller so it won't bash and tear the engine cowling. Then a terrible scream. It's Warren, sir, in the ball turret. The screaming filled the intercom.

Jockey around. Evasive acton. Bandits everywhere. So close he could see the bladders of their oxygen masks pumping in and out fast, like his own. Another engine hit. Let's get the hell out of here. Baker was yelling now. He didn't know where they were. Pieces of the fin peeling off in the slipstream. Ted dove for cloud cover, banked, turned west. They were losing altitude and fuel. Number two's on fire. Case screamed again, We can ditch in the Channel. Head for the Channel, you son of a bitch. No we can't. We have wounded. It would kill the wounded. Screw the wounded, Brice. That's only two. There's eight others of us here who will get picked up. Get Warren out of the turret. Can't see the fighters, sir. Couldn't see the ground either. The cloud was a gray protective blanket— but lethal in its way. Bombardier, drop your bomb load, but do it over a field. The bombs were armed, sir, at the IP. Get rid of them now, bombardier. This is an emergency. He waited for Shulman to push the toggle switch to Salvo. Left waist to pilot. Just seen a piece of the stabilizer come away. Ted was fighting to control the rudder, losing altitude fast, trying to keep the plane level. He heard a whoosh—the bomb bay opened. The plane was close enough to the ground that they could feel the concussion. In the breaks, it looked like farmland, but the clouds were thick, the sky gray. Who could tell? Two thousand feet. Could he make it to the Channel? One's duty was to the living. But how could he take two men to certain death? Pilot to all crew. Throw everything out you can. We're going in on our belly. He saw a village in the distance. Pilot to navigator. Where are we? Don't know, sir. Fifteen hundred feet. Beyond the village a plateau, maybe a field. A thousand feet and falling. Pilot to crew. Assume positions for crash landing. Eight hundred feet. Pilot to left waist. Is Warren out of the turret? Yes, sir, but he's hit real bad. Beside the pilot, Case was crying. You can make it to the Channel. Five hundred feet. He was over the village, dipping, rising slightly, the engines straining. Get as far west as he could. Please God, let us make it to the pasture. He could see the field now. Maybe it was enough to land. A belly landing would slow them down. If it didn't, they'd hit the trees. Baker, still reporting. Two hundred feet. They were losing fuel. Sir, do you read me? Sir, do you read me?

He heard the screaming in his ears. Vibrations threatened to disintegrate the plane, snap a wing. He fought to keep the bomber level. He saw the steeple of the church, a pasture. Cows stumbled in the unspeakable roar; a horse reared. The wing dipped, and he righted it just as they came in. He felt the sharp hit, the first bounce, the second, the skid on the belly. There was frost on the grass.

And finally there was silence.

Inside his jacket, the boy began to shake. It was not the fear or the cold; it was instead, this time, the brambles, the gray sky, the fallen plane. It was as though he had never been, until this moment, in the war itself. It was one thing to imagine finding an American flyer in the wood, quite another to be staring at a soldier's feet. The man must be dead, Jean decided. He sank to his knees, crawled around to the other side of the brambles. He stared at the tangle in the gray light, afraid to find what he was searching for.

Jean saw the face—scratched, with blood on it, lying on one cheek, eyes shut. The face was pink still; the American did not look like the dead man beside the plane.

“Hullo,” Jean tried, his only English, his voice cracking.

The pilot opened his eyes. Even in the dim light, Jean could see their color—a translucent green, the green of the sea glass that his mother kept in a box on her bureau. He had never seen such eyes on anyone before—the only color in the dun forest.

Jean whispered urgently in Walloon, “I am Belgian. You have fallen on Belgian soil.”

The American looked intently at the boy.

Jean, shaking violently inside his jacket, tried again. He spoke, but this time he accompanied his words with gestures. Pointing to himself and to the soil, then again, then once more, repeating the word
Belgique
over and over. Insisting.

The American was motionless, except for his eyes scanning Jean's face.

The boy removed the cheese and bread and the bottle of water from his pockets. He mimed taking a drink. Jean could not reach the American through the brambles, however. He had somehow to get the man out. But how? Did he dare touch the injured leg?

As if in answer, the American began a slow slide backwards, on his belly, until he had released himself from the tangle of thorns. Jean moved on his knees to meet him at the other side of the bushes. He watched as the American rolled over and lay flat on his back, staring at the tree-tops. The effort seemed to have exhausted him.

Jean opened the bottle of water, cradled the American's head at an angle so the man could drink. The leather at the back of the American's head was cold to the touch. Jean's hand was shaking so badly he was afraid he would spill the water down the soldier's chin and neck. The American propped himself up on his elbows then, took a long swallow. He said an English word the boy could not understand.

The American pulled himself to a nearby tree, managed with his wrists to make it to a sitting position. Careful not to touch anything that might be injured, Jean gingerly held out the bread. The American—pilot? gunner? navigator? Jean couldn't tell—took the bread in cupped hands, angled it with his wrists and bit into it. The loaf, however, was tough, and the American had no strength in his wrists, no grip, to pull it free. Jean reached in and steadied the bread for the American, feeding him. He saw that the fingers of the man's hands were stiff, unbending, the skin an unnatural and waxy white.

The American chewed, swallowed, spoke again. Jean could tell by the inflection that the words formed a question, but he could do nothing but shake his head.

“Can you speak French?” the boy asked very slowly. This time the American shook his head.

The boy asked again, though the likelihood was improbable, “Do you speak Dutch?”

The American seemed not to understand.

Fearful that the tentative link between them might now be severed, with no words left to share, Jean pointed to his own chest. “Jean,” he said.

The American nodded. He pointed to himself. “Ted.”

Jean wished he were smarter. As he fed the American the bread and cheese and water, he tried to figure out how to convey his plan—a plan that had to be executed quickly, or the Germans would find the American. The frustration of being unable to speak made him want to cry. Wildly he pointed to himself, to the northern edge of the forest, and then made an arrow with his fingers that returned to the brambles.

The American studied the boy. He said something in English, shook his head, indicating he did not entirely understand.