by Alan Gratz
Like James, Sam wore a green-and-brown camouflage jacket, olive-green pants tucked into tan socks, and a green helmet covered with little shreds of fabric meant to help him blend in with the foliage when they landed. James and Sam had been friends since their first training days in England. Now, months later, they were finally crossing the English Channel in a British plane bound for France, wedged in tight beside the other Canadian paratroopers in their platoon.
“Okay, yes, I volunteered for the army,” James told Sam. “I had reasons. But it was false advertising! They said I’d be defending Canada, okay? I thought that meant … I don’t know, watching the Canadian coast for German U-boats,” he explained. “Guarding street corners in Toronto. Patrolling the Northwest Territories on moose-back. Not invading France! How is invading France defending Canada?”
“The best defense is a good offense,” said Sam.
“Okay, what does that even mean?” James complained. He shook his head. “I just want to get this over and get back to Canada as soon as possible.”
“Why’d you join, Chief?” one of the newer recruits asked Sam.
Sam turned to the newcomer. “The Canadian army doesn’t use the rank of ‘chief,’ ” he said, straight-faced. “I’m a lance corporal, like Lance Corporal McKay here.”
“No, that’s—that’s not what I meant—” the soldier stammered.
“Then what did you mean, Private?” Sam asked.
“Uh, nothing. Lance Corporal.”
Frightened as he was, James couldn’t help but smile. Ever since Sam had made lance corporal, just one rank above private, he’d put dozens of soldiers who’d tried to call him “chief” in their place the same way.
“And that,” Sam said across the aisle to James, “is why I joined.”
Machine-gun fire hit the Albemarle, and James and the other soldiers flinched instinctively. Not that there was anything you could do to avoid getting shot on a plane. Transport planes delivering paratroopers had to fly low—at about one thousand feet—which put them in the range of German anti-aircraft guns and machine guns. The rounds hitting the metal fuselage sounded like trash can lids banging in the alley behind James’s apartment building on trash day. Ka-tunk-ka-tunk-ka-tunk.
Okay, the Krauts are shooting at me. Honest to God shooting at me! James thought. He closed his eyes and tried to take deep breaths.
“What reasons?” Sam asked.
James opened his eyes. “What?”
“You said you volunteered for reasons. What were they?”
James huffed. “Because the Nazis invaded Winnipeg, okay?”
Sam stared at him. “James, the Nazis never invaded Winnipeg.”
“They did too,” James said.
“James, Manitoba is in the dead center of Canada,” Sam said. “It’s fifteen hundred miles from either coast. Don’t you think the Nazis would invade … I don’t know, Montreal or Toronto first?”
James sighed. “It wasn’t a real invasion, okay? It was If Day.”
James thought back to that day two years ago. It was February in Winnipeg, a month when the temperature never got above freezing. The snow was already piled up head-high on the sidewalks, and the Red River was a three-mile sheet of ice covered with skaters and ice fishermen every weekend.
It was ten o’clock in the morning on a Thursday, and James should have been in math class. But school was canceled for the rest of the day.
Because today was If Day.
James had just pulled out his coat and shut his locker when a hand pushed him face-first into the metal door. Ker-slam.
“Where do you think you’re going, McKay?”
James knew who it was without even turning around, before he ever heard him speak. Marvin Lennox. James’s personal bully.
Everybody else forgets who I am, James thought. So why can’t Marvin Lennox forget?
Marvin gave James a quick punch to the lower back, and James arched in pain. He turned, ready to try to fight back, even though he knew it was a lost cause. Marvin Lennox could beat James up on his own, but standing behind him were Marvin’s four stupid buddies too.
Marvin and his gang were a year ahead of James, and they were taller and stronger than he was. They were all on the football team and wore their orange-and-brown football sweaters instead of blazers to school. All of them wore their ties permanently loosened and rolled the cuffs up on their pants to show how cool they were. And like Marvin Lennox, they all had their dark hair slicked straight back on their heads like Humphrey Bogart.
James tried to get free, but Marvin pushed him against the lockers, and his hyena pals laughed.
“Let’s break it up here and get downtown for If Day,” a teacher said, walking past.
Marvin released James and waited for the teacher to move on before leaning in again menacingly.
“How about this for ‘If Day’?” Marvin said. “If me and my boys see you downtown today, McKay, we’ll kill you. And there ain’t nobody gonna save you.”
Marvin and his gang walked away, laughing, and James slumped against his locker. The easy thing to do would be to just go home and hide. But If Day promised to be the most exciting thing to happen in Winnipeg since … well, since forever.
James pulled on his coat and ran for the door.
He was just going to have to chance it.
The first sign that anything was different were the radio broadcasts. James heard one as he cut through Eaton’s Department Store to stay warm. The place was empty, and all the clerks who had to work were huddled, wide-eyed, around the store’s radios.
“Attention, citizens of Winnipeg,” said a radio announcer with a German accent. “Your city is now under the control of the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler is your führer now.”
James’s heart leaped. It was starting! He ran to the revolving doors on the far side of the store and pushed his way out—
—and then pushed his way right back in again when he spotted Marvin Lennox and his gang across the street. He flung himself behind a stand of mannequins in the window where he couldn’t be seen, and bumped into Charles Hill, a freshman who wrote for the school paper.
“Oh, hello,” Charles said, straightening his glasses. “I was just … shopping for clothes.”
James glanced up at the mannequins they hid behind—ladies’ mannequins wearing long evening dresses.
“Okay, I don’t think it’s your style, Charles,” said James. He peeked out from behind the mannequins, looking for Marvin Lennox.
“Are they gone?” Charles said.
“You hiding out from Marvin Lennox too?” James asked.
“He’s not happy about the article I wrote about the football team’s loss to Kelvin High. Like I’m the one who fumbled on the ten-yard line.”
“Okay, looks like they’re gone,” James said. “See you, Charles!”
James left the store and ran for the riverfront. An air raid siren suddenly blared, making him flinch, and he watched as planes with German Luftwaffe insignia droned by overhead.
James saw his first Nazis in a city park. There were dozens of them. Hundreds. Some of them wore the all-black uniforms of the SS—the dreaded secret police who made people disappear. More of them wore the gray-green uniforms of rank-and-file German soldiers. There were even tanks!
James joined the crowd of Winnipeggers gathering to watch. The crowd buzzed with excitement, and James hopped up and down. They were all thrilled because they knew this wasn’t a real Nazi invasion. It was If Day.
The Canadian government wanted people to buy Victory Bonds to fund the war effort, and to volunteer to fight. But even though the war in Europe had been raging for almost three years now with no end in sight, Europe was a long way from Canada, and it was hard for many people to understand why they should care. So Winnipeg decided to stage “If Day,” an elaborate spectacle designed to show the people what would happen if, one day, Nazi Germany invaded and conquered Canada. The planes overhead? Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft painted to lo
ok like Nazi planes. The German radio broadcasts? Scripted. The Nazi soldiers? Actors, their uniforms rented from a Hollywood production company. James and everyone else had read all about it in the newspaper for weeks, and now it was finally happening.
The crowd cheered at something, and James climbed up on the cold, slippery base of a lamppost to see. Canadian soldiers had arrived to face the “Nazi” menace! The two sides broke into a choreographed battle, firing blanks at each other and pretending to fight hand to hand. “Medics” ran through the battlefield, dragging the “wounded” to medical tents. Anti-aircraft guns fired big booming blanks at the planes overhead.
This is terrific! James thought. It was better than a war movie.
“McKay!” Marvin Lennox cried.
James tore his eyes away from the show and searched the crowd. There, pushing their way toward him through the spectators, were Marvin Lennox and his boys!
James hopped down from the base of the lamppost and crouched low behind the adults, looking for a place to hide. But hands grabbed him and pulled him back up. It was Helen Wilson, a popular girl in his class.
James blushed. “Oh, hi, Helen, I—”
Helen shushed him and turned him around to face the show. She stood right behind him as Marvin Lennox and his boys ran past, still searching for James.
“Thanks,” James said when they were gone.
“I hate those boys,” Helen said. “Always treating every girl at school like we’re stupid and catcalling us. Making every boy live in fear of them. Everybody hates them, but nobody does anything about it.”
The crowd oohed. The Canadian army had lost the battle. The Nazis had control of Winnipeg.
POOM. A cloud of smoke and dust shot into the air as the Nazis pretended to destroy the Maryland Bridge. The Nazi soldiers in the park came after the spectators to arrest them, and the crowd scattered. James lost track of both Helen and Marvin in the chaos.
The actors dressed as Nazis spent the rest of the day terrorizing the town. They stole lunches from workers in the Great-West Life insurance building. They boarded city buses and demanded to see everyone’s papers. They closed Winnipeg’s churches and arrested the priests.
Clank-clank-clank-clank! James watched as a tank—an actual tank!—rolled down Portage Avenue.
James ended up near his father’s office building, and he watched in horror as Nazis dragged his father down the steps to a waiting truck with all the other lawyers.
“Dad!” James cried. “Dad!”
A German soldier held him back. “He’s being taken to the internment camp at Lower Fort Garry. You can pay for his release there.”
James knew that this was all an act. That the Nazis were Canadians in costume, and that important Winnipeggers who were “arrested” had to donate money to the war effort or stay in “jail” all day. But it was still shocking to see his father dragged away against his will.
James caught sight of Marvin Lennox and his boys up the avenue, and took a detour. At the public library, he saw Nazi soldiers burning books in a bonfire. (Books the library deemed too worn out to read anymore and had donated to the cause.) Workers replaced the street signs on Main Street with signs reading “Hitlerstrasse”—Hitler Street—and the Winnipeg Tribune changed its name to the Winnipeg Lies-Sheet. James watched with a chill as the Union Flag over city hall came down and was replaced by the red, white, and black swastika of Nazi Germany.
“It must not happen here!” the mayor cried as he was hauled away. “Buy Victory Bonds! Volunteer! We’re stronger together!”
We’re stronger together. Something clicked for James, and he hurried back through the streets of Winnipeg. If Day was still happening all around him, but he had a different mission in mind.
Half an hour later, James turned a corner at Union Station and ran headlong into Marvin Lennox. They both staggered back and stood staring at each other before James turned and fled. Marvin and his boys ran after him. James pounded down the sidewalk, praying he didn’t slip on a patch of ice. Up and over the train tracks he went, and then down into the Forks, the historic park on the banks of the Red River.
James made it as far as the Forks Market before Marvin caught the collar of his coat and dragged him down to the ground. James fell forward on his hands, scraping both up badly. He couldn’t worry about his wounds though. Not yet. Marvin Lennox and his gang surrounded him, and the first kick to his side twisted James up and made him scream.
“Leave him alone, Lummox!” Helen Wilson cried.
Marvin Lennox and his boys froze. Helen stood a few yards away, alongside Charles Hill.
Marvin laughed. “Or what, Helen? You and four-eyes are going to sass me to death?”
“Or we do to you what you’ve been doing to the rest of us for years,” Helen said.
Out from behind bushes and trash cans and snow piles came almost thirty other students from their school. Boys and girls from every clique, every club, every class. Over the last half hour, James had collected them all here in the Forks and brought Marvin and his gang right to them.
“What’s this? The Losers’ Brigade?” Marvin joked. His boys laughed, but less confidently now.
“Every one of us has been bullied by you and your pack of idiots, Marvin Lennox,” Helen said, “and we’re here to finally put a stop to it.”
Helen advanced on Marvin’s gang, and the other students, emboldened by their numbers, stepped forward with her, closing in. Marvin and his friends backed away, until James was surrounded by his allies. Charles and another boy helped James to his feet.
“Fine. You win,” Marvin said. “But the next time I see you, McKay, you’re dead meat.”
“No,” said Helen. “If you hurt one of us, jeer at us, so much as look at one of us cross-eyed, ever again, you’re dead meat. And that’s a promise.”
Marvin laughed and pulled his crew away, trying to make it look like he was done with them, but it felt like a victory for James and his friends. They broke out in smiles, and he could feel the relief pouring through them.
“You think it’ll work?” Charles asked. “For good?”
“No,” Helen said. “Marvin’ll try us. He has to, to save face. So we have to be ready to fight.”
“We will,” James said. “And we’ll win. We’re stronger together.”
And they were. If Day had taught him that.
Which was why that spring, when he turned seventeen, James had volunteered for the Canadian army.
Ka-tunk-ka-tunk-ka-tunk.
Tracer bullets hit the fuselage of the airplane, bringing James back to the present day. He held his head as the plane spun and dove sickeningly. The soldier next to him threw up, either from the motion or nerves. Or both.
“You not going to tell me what If Day was?” Sam asked from across the aisle.
“Never mind, okay?” James told Sam. “It’s a long story.”
James twisted to look out the door in the floor, but all he saw was a dense white fog. If he couldn’t see anything, how could the pilot see all the other forty-nine transport planes flying in formation with them? And how would any of them know where their target was in all these clouds?
“I think I can see my house from here,” Sam joked, peeking through the hole.
A red light clicked on above them. That meant they were four minutes from the drop zone. James’s heart thumped in his chest. This was it. Whether he wanted to be here or not, there was no going back. Rumor had it that the officer at the back of the plane went last so he could shoot any man who refused to jump. The only reason you didn’t go through the hole in the floor was because you were already dead.
“Stand up and hook up!” the dispatcher yelled.
It was time to jump.
James struggled to his feet. In addition to the standard equipment he carried—his Bren light machine gun, extra bullet clips, Webley Revolver, flares, knife, toggle rope, medical kit, canteen, and food rations—James was also carrying a weapon called a PIAT. PIAT stood for “Projec
tor, Infantry, Anti-Tank.” The PIAT could fire a bomb that would take out a tank if you got close enough. Very close.
James carried the PIAT and six of the two-and-a-half-pound bombs in a separate canvas bag that would dangle from his leg during his descent. Worried he’d come down without something he needed, James had packed far more gear than he had ever practiced jumping with. Altogether he had to be carrying around a hundred pounds of weight. Sam was carrying even more, and James had to help him stand up.
James clipped his static line to the overhead cable that ran the length of the plane. After they jumped, the lines they clipped to the cable would pull tight, yanking their parachutes open for them.
James sucked in a big breath, swaying and bumping into the soldiers on either side of him. He’d thought being chased by Marvin Lennox and his gang was scary. That was nothing compared to what he was feeling now. He and the others had practiced jumping over and over again in England, but they had never jumped into a hail of bullets over enemy territory before.
Pa-tunk! A bullet tore through the bottom of the plane. It hit a soldier who was standing near James—in the butt. He screamed and fell, but a medic was there a moment later to bandage him up and get him back on his feet.
Either you were dead, or you jumped.
James’s captain stood at the front to address the platoon. “Alpha Company’s mission,” he began in a loud voice, “is to protect the 9th Battalion’s left flank during their attack on the Merville Battery, then cover their advance to Le Plein.”
James and all the rest of them had seen the reconnaissance maps. The Merville Battery was a heavily defended, steel-reinforced concrete bunker on the Normandy coast, which housed four 100-mm howitzer cannons that were aimed right at the spot where soldiers would land on the beaches. Le Plein was a small village nearby.
“We will then seize and hold the Le Mesnil crossroads,” the captain continued.
