Fortress of the Dead

by Chris Roberson

  “So if we had a helicopter we could just land there ourselves?” Curtis said, seeming to brighten at the thought of flying all the way to a landing rather than parachuting from midair. “Pretty thoughtful of them to leave a flat surface waiting for us like that. Might as well have rolled out a welcome mat.”

  “And I suppose that we should simply knock on the front door and announce our arrival when we do?” Werner replied, curling his lip in distaste. “Or would you presume that they would not notice a helicopter landing on their roof?”

  “It’s a moot point,” Hector interrupted, “because we don’t have a helicopter, and no way of getting our hands on one in anything like a useful amount of time. But our German friend here is correct. All chance of subtlety, subterfuge, or surprise would be lost if we tried to bring you into a landing under a powered flight. Our only hope is for you to hit silk high enough up and far enough out that under darkness they won’t be able to catch a glimpse of you. They might manage to catch sight of the Wellington on their radar scopes if they’re quick enough, but my hope is that with Ndidi and Monty here having buzzed them this morning in quick succession, they’d think we were just coming in for another reconnaissance run. At worst it will keep their attention focused on my kite as I fly away and not on any dark specks that might have fallen in my wake.”

  Ndidi was finishing her sketch of the layout of the fortress as seen from the air, and Jun stepped to her side to get a closer look.

  “Sir,” Jun said glancing over at Sergeant Josiah, arching an eyebrow. “Permission to speak?”

  Josiah sighed dramatically before he answered.

  “Kid, you need to stop raising your hand like a kid in a Sunday school class every time you’ve got something to share. Just spit it out, all ready.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Jun said, gaze dropping to the ground, chastened.

  “Don’t take it hard, kid, you’re still my favorite,” Josiah said with a sly grin. “Just speak up, time’s wasting.”

  Jun nodded, then turned around and pointed at a spot on Ndidi’s hastily-sketched diagram that had caught her eye.

  “What does this represent?” Jun asked, indicating what looked like a set of brackets along the northern side of the bird’s-eye-view layout. “Is that a door?”

  “In a sense,” Ndidi answered, and slid the chart a bit to one side until the side-on-view elevation sketch that she had done earlier was directly in front of her. “It looks to be a rolling door just beside the landing pad I mentioned. Like a big garage door, or the entrance to a hangar?”

  Monty leaned over on the other side of the table, still working on a mouthful of food.

  “Yeah, I spotted that, too,” he said, still chewing. “My first guess was hangar, as well. My thinking is that they designed it so that they could wheel in anything that landed on that pad inside, to get it in out of the elements, or maybe just out of sight.”

  “But these defensive emplacements you’ve marked out,” Jun went on, pointing at the four corners of the layout, “they’re like pillbox turrets facing out?”

  “Yes,” Ndidi nodded. “With anti-aircraft units on a swivel, each of them looking like they can cover about 270 degrees, covering the approaches more or less directly north, south, east, and west.”

  Jun had her hand on her chin, a thoughtful expression on her face. The sergeant came over to stand beside her, studying the sketches on the back of the chart for a moment before giving her a sidelong glance.

  “What you got cooking, kid?” he asked.

  “It just occurred to me that…” She paused, shaking her head. “No, it probably wouldn’t work.”

  “Come on, just spit it out,” Josiah urged. “You ever heard the saying, there’s no such thing as a bad idea?”

  Jun chewed her lower lip for a moment before answering.

  “It’s just, I think maybe Curtis was right…” she began.

  “Okay, now that is a bad idea,” the sergeant interrupted after a sharp bark of laughter.

  “No, I am being serious, sir,” Jun pressed on, with more intensity and conviction, not failing to notice Curtis’s mock outrage at the sergeant’s quip. “Perhaps that landing pad is our best option for entering the structure, after all. Only without powered flight to announce our arrival.”

  Jun looked up from the chart, and searched the faces of her four squad mates and the three pilots for a glimmer of recognition, but from their expressions it appeared that she was not getting her point across.

  “Look,” she continued, pointing to each of the four corners of the structures in turn, “the anti-aircraft emplacements are positioned to cover the approaches, but if I’m reading this right then none of the turrets can be turned to face within.”

  Jun paused and glanced to Ndidi for confirmation.

  “That is how it appeared to me, yes,” the pilot said with a nod.

  “And with the fortress built partially into the side of the mountain, that means that the slope continues upwards above the hangar entrance?” Jun ran her fingertip along the wavy lines that Ndidi had sketched in on the north side of the structure in the bird’s-eye view, like the gradations in a contour map showing changes in elevation.

  “Yeah,” Monty chimed in, wiping crumbs from the corners of his mouth, “that’s about the size of it, from what I recall.”

  “It had been my assumption,” Sibyl put in, sounding unsure, “that we would attempt to land on the flank of the mountain where the slope is more gradual but the mountainside itself is wider, giving us a broader margin for error in terms of a drop zone. And that we would then make the short ascent to the fortress from below. Correct me if I’m wrong, Jun, but it sounds like you are suggesting the complete opposite.”

  “I suppose that I am, yes,” Jun replied. “Assuming that the winds are with us”—she paused and glanced in Monty’s direction, who once again formed an ‘x’ with his forearms to indicate crosswinds and winced—“we should designate the fortress’s landing pad itself our drop zone, with the higher slope as a fallback if circumstances demand. Those emplacements will be watching either for enemy elements climbing up from below or listening for enemy aircraft approaching from above, so if we come in quiet enough and under cover of dark, we just might get down to earth without them noticing.”

  “And then we knock on the door like Werner here says,” Curtis said with a sneer, gesturing in the direction of the German soldier.

  “Dear boy, it was your suggestion, after all,” Sibyl cautioned. “Even if…”

  “No, she is right,” Werner interrupted, hand on his chin and with a studious expression on his face. “This facility will be staffed by SS zealots, after all. They were indoctrinated to view their enemies as subhuman and beneath contempt, and in my experience they tend to make the mistake of underestimating their opponents as a consequence. Fraulein Jun’s plan is so fraught with the potential for disaster that it is almost laughable—”

  “Hey, now!” Jun began to object, but Werner motioned for a moment’s grace to continue.

  “But that is precisely what makes it the most strategic option we could choose,” Werner continued. “They will not have been trained to anticipate such an attack because no prudent commander would ever dream of ordering an attack of this sort to be carried out. And ours is most definitely not a prudent commander.”

  Now it was Josiah’s turn to look offended, while Sibyl hid a smile behind her hand and Curtis stifled a chuckle. It took a moment, but Werner finally noticed the expression on the sergeant’s face and shrugged his shoulders slightly before continuing.

  “I do not mean to give offense, Herr Sergeant, but merely to state the facts. You could hardly be described as being the product of classical military training. And your tactical choices are often not those that a more traditionally-minded and, yes, prudent commander would make.”

  “Well, I can’t exactly argue with that.” The sergeant’s expression seemed to soften somewhat. Then a smile slowly tugged up the corners of his mout
h. “Because that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  Josiah turned to Hector, who was making a final study of the notations that Ndidi had made to the charts, and copying coordinates and notes over to his clipboard.

  “So when do we leave?” the sergeant asked.

  Hector finished writing down a few last notes, then flipped the clipboard closed and tucked it under his arm.

  “The Wellington is fueled up and prepped for takeoff,” he said, standing up straight with shoulders back as if presenting himself for inspection. “If Monty and Ndidi here are willing to assist the ground crew in getting the kite moved into position, we can be ready to takeoff as soon as your team is suited up and kitted out with arms, ammunition, and parachutes. Factoring in the flight time, that should put us over the target in the dead of night, just as planned.”

  Josiah rubbed his hands together as he turned to address Jun and the rest of the squad.

  “Y’all heard the man, right? I want everyone mission-ready and on the airfield in fifteen. So get to it!”

  As the rest of the squad trooped out of the mess tent, Jun took one final look at the sketches Ndidi had done of the Alpine fortress. She tried not to think too hard or long about the idea that they would be trying to land in such a relatively small drop zone on her very first parachute jump, much less that it was her idea in the first place.

  Chapter 16

  TWO HOURS LATER, and Jun was still trying not to think too hard about it, but finding it difficult to keep her mind on much of anything else at all. They had been bundled up in the rear of the Vickers Wellington bomber ever since taking off from the base camp’s makeshift airfield, sitting on a metal frame affixed to the deck that originally housed the bomber’s payload but which had been adapted into rough seating for their use, each of them ineffectively strapped into place by a collection of web belts and netting to prevent them from bouncing from deck to ceiling and back again whenever the plane hit a bit of turbulence. They had to shout to be heard over the sound of the Wellington’s twin engines, which thrummed and roared just beyond the plane’s hull to either side of them. Not that there was much left for them to discuss, beyond the most obvious questions, none of which they could yet answer. Like a tongue always searching out the sorest tooth, Jun’s thoughts continued to circle back around to those questions again and again: Would they survive the parachute jump and successfully reach the ground? Would they manage to reach the drop zone as planned? If they managed to reach the landing pad in one piece and in sure enough health to continue the mission, could they manage to gain access to the fortress itself? And on, and on, and on. The mission before them seemed full of any number of insurmountable difficulties.

  But as she had learned when she had first been forced to fight against the Dead on the Eastern Front, Jun knew that the only way to approach a seemingly problem is not to look towards the mission’s ultimate goal, but instead to focus only on the next step immediately before you. It did Jun no good to wonder now about possible difficulties they might have gaining access to the fortress’s hangar doors, or even to worry about remembering to bend her legs and roll properly when she came in for a landing. Her most pressing concern was with getting out of the plane in one piece and them getting her chute open in time for a controlled descent. Anything beyond that was a problem for a future Jun to concern herself with, once the concerns of the present Jun were a thing of the past.

  And so Jun kept her eyes on the bay doors that they would shortly be exiting the plane through, and her hand trailed repeatedly to the ripcord that hung from one side of the harness she wore, that would release the tightly-packed parachute she wore on her back. She tried not to focus on what Hector had said, about paratroopers more traditionally using what he called a “static line,” which caused their chutes, or “canopies” as he called them, to open automatically when they jumped from the plane. But he had gone on to explain that the Wellington had not been designed to carry paratroopers, and there wasn’t time to attempt rigging up a functional static line in the bomber’s bay. With what Jun had come to recognize as Hector’s characteristic good humor and optimism, he had simply smiled and told them that they had nothing to worry about, so long as they kept their wits about them and remembered to pull the ripcord roughly five seconds after exiting the plane. Pull it too soon and they’d risk tangling up with one another, and pull it too late and they would run the risk that the chutes would not fully deploy in time to slow their descent to a safe enough speed before they reached the ground. All of which Jun was studiously trying not to think about as she concentrated all of her attention on the simplest aspects of the task that lay before her, and not on what might go wrong.

  Wait your turn, get out of the plane, count to five, then pull the cord. Wait your turn, get out of the plane, count to five, then pull the cord. Again, and again, and again, the words repeated themselves in her mind on a constant loop, like a mantra.

  So deeply engrained had they become, and so focused was her attention, that when Josiah tapped her on the shoulder, Jun turned around and began to say them out loud, picking up right where her internal monologue had left off.

  “Count to five, then pull the cord,” she said by rote, before realizing what she was doing. She stopped herself short, embarrassed.

  “How’s that, again?” the sergeant shouted over the roar of the engines, tapping the tip of his index finger against the hinge of his jaw just beneath his earlobe. He was standing over Jun, holding onto webbing affixed to the inner hull of the plane and trying his best to maintain his balance. He had evidently just been to the bomber’s cockpit and returned. “Couldn’t make it out.”

  “Never mind,” Jun said as she shook her head, then when she saw the look of incomprehension on the sergeant’s face repeated even louder, shouting “Never mind!”

  Josiah shrugged, and then patted her on the shoulder with his free hand.

  “I know, I know,” he said, managing to sound sympathetic even while shouting, “this whole mess is playing my nerves like a banjo, too, kid. But we’ll get through it, if we stick together and stick to the plan. Now, the pilot tells me that we’re coming up on the drop zone, so we need to be ready to roll as soon as the bay doors open up. You with me?”

  Jun realized that she was nervously chewing her lower lip, and quickly stopped doing so before nodding her assent, her jaw clenched tightly shut.

  “Good girl,” the sergeant said, patting her once more on the shoulder and then moving on to pass the instructions on to the rest of the squad in turn, beginning with Sibyl to Jun’s immediate left.

  Through the corner of her eye, Jun could see that Sibyl’s normally placid and calm demeanor was slipping, but unlike Jun the Englishwoman did not seem to be worried or concerned about their impending jump. Instead, Sibyl seemed to be positively excited about the idea. Jun couldn’t clearly make out what she and the sergeant were saying to one another, but from her manner and the expression that Josiah was wearing as he responded, Jun wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Sibyl was relating some familiar old quotation that her late husband always used to say, or else was recounting how their present circumstances reminded her of some adventure the two of them had shared in their travels before the war.

  Leaving Sibyl beaming a happy smile, the sergeant moved down the line to get Curtis up to speed, and while Jun could hear even less of their conversation than she had of the previous one, from the facial expressions and body language of both men it was clear enough to understand what was being said. Curtis was making some wry remark or a cynical quip, and Josiah was playing the long-suffering superior officer trying to get a subordinate to take matters seriously. Considering how often Josiah was the one to share a joke or a tall tale with a humorous twist ending, it always amused Jun to see how often Curtis managed to force the sergeant into the role of his own personal straight man.

  Then Josiah had reached the end of the line and was bending down to talk to Werner. Their exchange was the shortest of
them all, with the sergeant saying just a few short words and the German soldier replying with nothing more than a curt nod, the consummate professional. No time or energy wasted with unnecessary pleasantries or banter, no chit chat or commentary. They had their orders, and Werner was ready to carry them out when the time came.

  And it appeared that the time had come. As Josiah made his way back along the deck towards the forward end of the bay, a light flashed in a wire cage above the hatch to the cockpit. Jun turned, and saw that Hector was leaning over and looking back through the hatch into the bay, holding up one hand and giving them a thumbs up, a big grin on his face. He shouted something to the sergeant that Jun couldn’t hear, but the gist of it was clear enough.

  It was time to go.

  The bomb bay doors clanked loudly as they began to lever open. Jun could feel the vibration through the deck beneath her feet, as the viciously cold air from outside began to blow through the ever-widening gap as the doors continued to open.

  From the end of the line, Josiah pointed at Werner and then held up his index finger and spun it in a tight circle, like he was winding up an imaginary flywheel. The German soldier nodded, and quickly extricated himself from the web belts that had held him fastened to their makeshift seating. Securing the bundle of weapons that hung from a strap at the bottom of his parachute’s deployment bag, then holding the bundle in front of him, Werner made his way to the edge of the open bomb bay doors. He nodded once in the squad’s direction, and then he was through the doors and out of sight.

  Curtis had moved into position while Jun’s attention was on Werner, and after a delay of mere seconds the young American had gone through the open doors after him. Jun was watching Sibyl move into position when she felt the sergeant’s hand on her shoulder.