Rush to Glory

by Robert L Hecker

  “Evidently not,” she agreed. Her forehead began to show a wrinkle of concern. “Earls Court Road is just there. I hope it didn’t hit the Underground.”

  “Isn’t that close to where we had dinner?”

  “Yes. On Cromwell Road.”

  She was walking faster now, anxious to find the source of the damage. But Hal wanted to hold back. He dreaded seeing the bomb’s destruction. It was difficult enough to drop bombs when you could keep the truth of their horror tucked safely away in a remote corner of your mind.

  But he could not turn and run, so he was at her side when they rounded a corner into a shocking scene. Where the Green Parrot Cafe had stood, firemen were pouring streams of water on tangled rubble of splintered wood, raw-looking bricks, and huge chunks of broken concrete. A great, ugly crater that yawned at one corner of the awful destruction was slowly filling with mud and water. Men in slickers swarmed over the debris in the glare of portable floodlights, wrenching and battering frantically at the wreckage with picks and axes.

  Hal felt Betty’s hand on his arm and realized that he had stopped and was staring.

  “Hal. What is it?”

  Her voice broke through his horror. “Nothing. Just . . . surprise, I guess.” He took a deep breath. It took all his will power to move forward. “Come on; maybe I can give them a hand.” It was like forcing himself to walk into hell, and he silently damned his parents. How much easier this war would be if they had raised him with no sense of pity, no feelings of compassion.

  A large, portly man with a heavy beard stood near one of the fire trucks bawling directions to the others through his cupped hands, and Hal made his way to him.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Could you use some more help?”

  The man turned faded blue eyes toward Hal. “Aye.” He pointed to the small truck. “Get ‘cher an ax off the lorry. ‘op to it now.”

  At the truck, Hal selected a fire ax from the litter of equipment in the truck bed. He saw three men tearing frantically at a jumble of splintered timbers which had been the rear wall of the cafe, and Hal heard a bass bellow, “ ’ere there, lieutenant. Give those chaps a ‘and.”

  He scrambled over the rubble and positioned himself opposite a fireman who was chopping at the heaviest of the timbers. The timber was old and stained with grease, but under their synchronized blows, it gave off fat white chips that leaped into the air before they vanished in the surrounding rubble. When the timber cracked and broke upward, a chunk of tangled plaster and wood was thrust sharply into the air, and one of the men said, “’ere’s one. ‘and me that torch.”

  He took a flashlight from another man and directed its beam into the crevasse. The light fell full on the face of the laughing man with the mustache. His mouth was still open in a jocund gold-toothed grin. But he wasn’t laughing; he was dead, his body ripped half-open.

  The others moved in to lift him out, but Hal stood motionless, his eyes dulled with shock.

  “Give us a ‘and, chappie,” one of the men said, but Hal did not move. He couldn’t. He thought he was going to be sick.

  “That’s all right, lad,” he heard a deep voice say, and he felt a hand turn him around. “Go over by the lorry ‘til you get your bearin’s. Go on now.”

  Hal felt himself moving over the wreckage, picking his way carefully, the ax dragging in his hand, but he had no sense of the shattered concrete and wood under his feet. At the lorry, he leaned against a fender and watched them carry the body of the happy little man to the street where they laid it carefully near three other canvas-covered bodies. When they raised the canvas to pull it over the body, Hal saw the curly-haired waitress. Her clothing was torn and dirty, and there was blood on her pretty face. Then the canvas settled, and she was again one of the anonymous lumps.

  Betty came up to stand beside him. “Not very pleasant, is it?”

  Hal couldn’t take his eyes off the canvas and the four covered bodies. “My God!” he murmured. “One bomb. Just one.”

  “This isn’t bad. You should have been here during the blitz. This sort of thing was common all over London every day. And Coventry. And Southampton. And a lot of other places.”

  Hal swallowed and rubbed at his sweaty face. “I can’t believe this.” His voice was strained. “You drop on the practice targets, and they make a little white puff, and that’s all. Even the real ones . . . if you can see anything, it’s . . . just a little smoke or dust. Nothing like this. Jesus!”

  “You didn’t know them,” Betty said harshly. “Suppose you did? It might mean something then. But you didn’t know them. Tomorrow you won’t even remember what they looked like.”

  Hal scarcely heard her. “I do that too, you know. I kill people like that.”

  “You kill the people who did this.”

  “They’re people. Just like these.”

  “They’re monsters!” she snapped. “You can see that. The evidence is right there in front of you. The Germans did that, just like my parents.” She grabbed his coat and turned him with sudden ferocity. “You’ve got to make them pay. You understand? I can’t do it. You’ve got to do it for me! You’ve got to!”

  Hal took her by the shoulders. “Betty! Stop that! Betty!”

  Her fury faded as she focused on his face. She brushed a strand of hair aside. “All right,” she said, her voice still cold and hard. “But you haven’t seen the last of this. Not if you stay in London. You’d better get used to it.”

  “Used to it?” Hal said. “Are you?”

  “No. But I meant what I said about killing Nazis. I can’t do it myself. You’ve got to do it for me.”

  Her parents had been killed during the blitz. Hal had no answer for such cold fury, however justified.

  They walked away from the lights and the dirt and the sounds, back into the darkness.

  “In a way,” Betty said, “I’m glad for those bombs.”

  Hal stopped walking and turned to her. “Glad? You saw what happened.”

  “I know. But people forget. If the Germans kept the war on the other side of the Channel, it wouldn’t be long before people would forget what it was like during the blitz.”

  “You haven’t forgotten.”

  “No,” she said, “I haven’t forgotten.” She hesitated, and he realized how callous his reply had been. “It’s people like you,” she said, “who have to be reminded.”

  “Me?”

  “You and your friends back there at the party. The war doesn’t mean a thing to them—just a bloody lark. Go out and fly your airplanes, and they give you a pretty ribbon, and then you make love to the girls. That’s your war. Medals and women.”

  At her words, hot white anger burst upon Hal. “Listen, you smug little bitch. You don’t know a damn thing about us. I had to cut the leg off my waist-gunner yesterday. There was blood all over—God damned red American blood. You British think you’re the only ones in this damned war. We’ve got hospitals full of Americans, some of them with their legs shot off like him. And there are going to be more. A hell of a lot more.”

  “It’s not the same. You’re not like us. You don’t know how to hate. You’re ready to quit right now just because you saw a little blood. You haven’t got the guts for it.”

  “The hell I haven’t,” Hal said, his voice low and intense. “I’ll do my job.”

  “A job. That’s it, isn’t it? Your gunner with his leg cut off, what was he to you? Nothing. Today you remember. But tomorrow, next week, you’ll forget. Then they’ll have to kill somebody else to make you remember.”

  Hal shook his head. “I’ll never forget that.”

  “I don’t believe it. You’re too bloody soft for war.”

  “So are you,” Hal replied softly. “Is that why you fly those missions? You’re afraid you’ll forget too. It isn’t a war you’re fighting. It’
s a vendetta. All you want is revenge.”

  “I want more than that. I want them all dead. Every bloody one. Dead!”

  She was shaking with anger, tears streaming down her cheeks, her clenched fists rigid at her sides.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you’re wrong about the Americans. We might seem like a bunch of playboys, but we die just like regular people.”

  “I know.” Her voice was low, her anger draining.

  Hal put his arm around her and pulled her close against him. He held her until she stopped trembling. After a moment, she said, “You must think I’m balmy.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Hal kept his voice light. “Like you said, it’s the war.”

  “I saw the way you looked back there. I heard what you said about the bombs.”

  “About one bomb causing all that damage?”

  “Yes. You mustn’t feel that way. I was trying to change your mind, but I . . . I got carried away.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Hal said. “I’m a real killer.”

  He took her arm and led her down the steps to the Underground. When his train arrived, he kissed her lightly. “Are you still going to show me around London?”

  “If you like. I’m off most of the day.”

  “Wonderful. Shall I meet you here?”

  “You might not be able to find it. I’ll meet you at the R.P.”

  “The R.P.?”

  “Regent Palace. Eight o’clock?”

  “Uh, make it nine. This is supposed to be a vacation.”

  As the train rumbled away, Hal watched her standing on the platform. She looks so small and fragile. It was hard to believe she could be so tough. The depth of her bitterness, her desire for revenge, astonished him. She was determined to go on a bombing mission. Maybe she would. But she also had an equally strong empathy. He would have to be careful, or her fury and her passion might destroy them both.

  CHAPTER 13

  The next morning after a free breakfast at the American Dutchess Club, Hal and Cossel walked south on Regent Street toward Piccadilly. It had stopped raining, and sunlight streamed in angelic bands through holes in a ragged overcast. The air smelled washed and clean. The traffic on the streets and the people on the sidewalks hurried with the excitement of high purpose. Except for the shattered buildings and the cleanup crews, the war was once again far away.

  Betty was right, Hal thought. Here in the beauty of the day, it was easy to forget the unseen war. In this particular area, there were no smoldering ruins, and no canvas-covered bodies, and the sun was warm. Death was a forgotten specter. And if it was like this now, how much dimmer would memories of the horror be in a year or two years . . . or ten?

  As they approached the Regent Palace Hotel, Cossel asked, “What’s your plan for the day? Want to take in St. Paul’s?”

  “Well, I’ve got kind of a date. She’s going to show me around.”

  “Well, well. You work fast. Do I know her?”

  “From the party last night. Betty.”

  “The redhead? The same one who was at the base party?”

  Hal nodded.

  Cossel grinned. “I hope she doesn’t charge by the hour.”

  “She’s not a commando. She’s a British WAAF.”

  “A WAAF? You sure?”

  “Yeah. She’s attached to the BBC. Some kind of a reporter. That’s why she was at the base. She wants to fly one of our missions.”

  Cossel stopped so abruptly that people were forced to flow around them like a stream around a boulder. “Fly a mission? Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. She’s been on two with the RAF. Now she wants to fly on an American bomber.”

  “Is that why she’s buttering you up? She thinks she can fly with us?”

  “She’s not ‘buttering me up.’ What the hell can I do? I’m a bombardier, for Christ’s sake. If she wanted to do that, she’d be after O’Reilly.”

  Cossel shrugged. “You’re the major’s brother.”

  The thought was so unwanted, so shocking that Hal almost frantically tried to think of a way to refute it. But most of the evidence indicated that Cossel was right. Why else would such a beautiful, vivacious girl practically throw herself at him? Was he that handsome, that desirable? No way. Well, what the hell. Go with the flow.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “She’ll find out soon enough that I can’t do anything for her. Meanwhile, I’ll have the pleasure of her company.”

  “Good thinking.”

  They resumed walking, and Hal asked, “Did O’Reilly end up with the little brunette?”

  “Yeah. He disappeared right after you did. Fox left with the blonde.”

  “How about you?”

  “Me?” Cossel shook his head. “I just went along for the ride.”

  “Now you’re kidding me. There were plenty there for the taking.”

  “Not for me. Judy wouldn’t like it.”

  “Judy?” He hadn’t heard Cossel mention that name before.

  “My wife,” Cossel said. “In Chicago.”

  Hal glanced at Cossel in surprise. “I had no idea you were married.”

  “Sure. I’ve got a little boy, two years old.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be here.”

  Cossel smiled ruefully. “What better place?”

  “Home. With them.”

  Cossel shook his head. “I don’t look at it that way.”

  “What other way is there?”

  “I told you I’ve got a son. You think I want him to grow up to something like this?”

  “Well, no. Of course not.”

  “Then it’s up to me to see that this doesn’t happen again.”

  “You think this is the war to end all wars?” Hal asked, sarcasm in his voice.

  “No. Only a damned fool would believe that. My dad was gassed in the first ‘war to end all wars.’ He spent the rest of his life, what there was of it, in and out of veterans’ hospitals. I don’t want that to happen to my son. As long as there are psychos on this earth like Hitler and Mussolini, and idiots who’ll listen to them, we’ll have wars. But I’m sure as hell going to do all I can to see if I can keep it from being in my son’s generation.”

  “You think your being here will make a difference?”

  “It’ll make a difference to me. Because I want to know about the killing, and I want to know about the dying. I want to have it crammed down my throat. I want to hate it so much I’ll fight it the rest of my life with my mind and my voice and my guts.”

  Hal walked in silence. Cossel and Betty. Each one filled with rage, and each doing something about it. In a way, Cossel had voiced Hal’s reason for volunteering. But he didn’t have Cossel’s burning anger. Maybe Betty was right, and he was just walking through the war. Finish your tour, then go back to your warm, safe womb in Fairview. Quickly forget the inconveniences and the horrors. He wondered whether he would ever feel a conviction for anything so strongly that he would give his whole mind and body to it.

  In truth, he was doing just that. But not like them. Not with their passion.

  So why? He didn’t want to think about it. He might not like the answer.

  When he saw Betty waiting on the sidewalk, he smiled. Strange that seeing her should give him so much pleasure. Maybe it was the uniform. She was wearing a dark blue WAAF uniform with her bag slung from her shoulder. She had bound her hair in a Grecian knot so that her garrison hat was able to cling precariously to the side of her head. She charged the drab uniform with the glow of springtime.

  “Good morning,” she said. She saw the way Hal was staring and looked down at her uniform. “Do I look presentable?”

  Hal made a faint whistle. “Boy! Do you.” He took a deep breath like a diver coming up for air. “You
look great. You know Ken Cossel.”

  “Yes. Hello.”

  “Hi,” Cossel said. “Nice to see you again.”

  Hal asked, “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Hours ago. Have you?”

  “Oh, sure. Cossel and I picked up a couple of donuts.”

  “You call that breakfast? You’ll die of malnutrition.”

  “I’ll do better when we have lunch.”

  She glanced at her watch. “We’d better begin. I only have until three.”

  “Okay. Where should we start?”

  “The place where everyone starts: St. Paul’s Cathedral.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She turned to Cossel. “Are you joining us.”

  Cossel shook his head. “You go ahead. I’m going to looks up O’Reilly.”

  Hal shook his head with a smile. “Good luck. He might not be in his own bed.”

  Cossel grinned as he moved away. “In that case, I’ll pay a visit to Sherlock Holmes.”

  Later, riding a bus back along Fleet Street and the Strand, Betty turned to him. “You may not think so, but I am a good reporter. I’ve been on missions with the RAF. And with the ground troops and the Navy. As soon as the arrangements are completed, I’ll be joining Monty’s forces in France. And I will be flying a mission with your Eighth Air Force. Possibly with your own 401st Bomb Group. It’s simply waiting to be cleared with Pinetree and getting permission from your Colonel Sutton.”

  In the pleasure of being with her, Hal had put his suspicions behind him, but now they surged back like acid, creating bitter words. “Is that why you’re seeing me?”

  Her eyes widened, startled. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve got a feeling that you’re having trouble getting the colonel’s blessing. I don’t know how far you went to try to get it; that’s your business. But I should tell you: if you think you can get to him or Luke through me, you’re mistaken.”

  She made a move as though to slap him. He almost wished she would, except that it wouldn’t prove anything except that her ego had been wounded. She put her hands in her lap and laced her fingers together as though to prevent any impulse to violence.