Chapter Thirteen: April, 1945
Arty lay there, staring up at the Wellington’s undercarriage, all around him the frantic yells of men calling for help, calling out to their friends. Someone shouted his name, and he responded that he was all right: in shock, and his heart was racing, but he was, by some small miracle, alive. He rolled onto his front and crawled out into the open. A few sharp scraps of glass and metal had penetrated his uniform, and there was a dull ache in his thighs, but otherwise it seemed he had escaped serious injury, although the cuts would need medical attention. Feeling a little wobbly, he got to his feet and did a quick head count of his crew: all six were present, in body if not in mind.
“The Lancaster, Sarge,” one of them uttered. The lads were staring past Arty, their eyes wide in horror. Arty turned to see.
“Oh, my God. Charlie.”
The bomber, still in one piece, had crashed into the garage and demolished it, before coming to a stop, nose in the air, leaned up against the now collapsed side of the hangar. The wreckage was still shifting and as it settled, the sound of metal screeching against metal splintered the air. Charlie was watching us. He was outside. He was watching us. He wouldn’t have gone back in. Arty kept his thoughts on that as he marched unsteadily towards the garage, but the pain in his legs was worsening with every step he took. He staggered across the runway to the nearest group of airmen, mutely waved both hands, and collapsed, unconscious.
When Skies Have Fallen Page 19
