Oh, God! It couldn’t happen again. Not with this beautiful girl, not with Crystal. But the voice was Susan’s voice as it repeated over and over, “God, please. Take me, take me,” and he couldn’t bear to hear it. He turned his face away in an agony of fear and self-hate.
Abruptly, the voice stopped. Her eyes were open, and she was staring at him. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
Hal could not answer. He did not want her to see the tears that streaked his face, so he buried his cheek in the rough material of the couch.
“Come on,” she commanded. “Get it in.” When he didn’t respond, she forced one of her hands between them. “Christ,” she said. “You’re not even hard.”
She pulled half away from him. “What the hell’s wrong?”
Then her lips arched into a tight smile, and she said, “I know how to fix that.” She twisted over on top of him with surprising strength, turning Hal onto his back. She slid down on the couch, trailing her lips down his stomach.
When Hal realized what she was going to do, his brain exploded with shock and revulsion, and he thrust himself violently away. “No. You . . . you whore! You damn whore!”
Crystal cried out and thrust herself to her knees above him, her perfect body glistening with sweat, her face contorted by awful violence. She slapped him. Again. And again. He made no move to defend himself, and she snarled in fury as she beat at him with both fists. Then she stood over him, her body racked by gasping sobs.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” she whispered. “Out! Get out!”
She turned and stalked into the blackness of her bedroom and slammed the door shut.
Hal forced his numb hands to put on his clothing. Then he stumbled through the darkness of the hall and out into the clear, starry night. The cold air was like a blast of reality, and he looked around in bewilderment.
He had failed. He had failed again. Overwhelmed with loathing, he ran blindly to the car.
CHAPTER 16
Sergeant Spellman woke Hal roughly in the early morning darkness, shaking him by the shoulder and saying, “Up and at ’em, killer. You got a good day for it.” Then he moved on to Cossel and O’Reilly and Fox, who cursed him roundly. Spellman laughed and went back out into the darkness, deliberately leaving the door open to the night cold.
When Hal rolled out of his bunk, he winced with a sudden flaming pain across his back and ribs, and he remembered last night with sad remorse. What the hell was wrong with him? Any man in the world would give his balls to be with Crystal. And he had done nothing. Would she tell Luke? Not likely. Unless she tried to make it sound like he had tried to rape her.
Hal laughed softly. Rape her? He hadn’t even been able to take advantage of her invitation.
He was wide awake now, but his eyes were gritty, the lids stuck, and his mouth had the sour taste of too little sleep. He struggled into his trench coat and wooden clacks and carried his clothes to the washroom.
In the dim light, he examined bloody furrows in his chest and back. The skin of his cheeks and jaw felt tender, but there were no bruises, thank heavens. Crystal had gone crazy, completely insane. Not that he could blame her. How she must hate him. And yet . . . almost the same thing had happened with Betty, and she did not hate him.
He heard someone coming, and he shrugged his coat into place just as Cossel and Fox staggered in.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Fox said. “I didn’t even get my eyes closed.”
“What time did you get back, Hal?” Cossel asked as he prepared to shave. “I didn’t see you when I hit the sack.”
“I’m not sure,” Hal answered. He did not look at them. He couldn’t. “About twelve, I guess.”
“That’s sure as hell the last time I’m going to one of those parties when I got a mission,” Fox said. He peered at his eyes in the mirror and winced.
“It’s those English girls,” Cossel said, winking at Hal. “They’re too much for you Texans.”
“The hell they are! I never saw no woman in my life I couldn’t Handel.”
“You mean, wouldn’t handle,” Cossel corrected.
“Yeah,” Fox said with a grin. “That, too.” He turned back to his shaving and began to whistle. “Hell, I c’n sleep when I get old. If I get old.”
On his way back to the barracks, Hal passed O’Reilly plodding toward the latrine with his head down, and his hands buried deep in the pockets of his trench coat. He ignored Hal, and Hal said nothing. He was not in the mood to handle O’Reilly.
Inside the barracks, he moved quietly down the aisle past sleeping and half-sleeping men. At O’Reilly’s bunk, he paused. Had Betty Axley been serious about staying over? Would she stay with O’Reilly? There was a cold knot of fear inside him as he bent to peer at O’Reilly’s bunk. Something moved beneath the blankets. Oh, Jesus. It was a girl. He felt the bile of disappointment rise in his throat. Betty might be mad as hell at him . . . and she had a right to be . . . but he had not expected her to get back at him by degrading herself to one cut above a whore. But then, maybe jumping into bed with O’Reilly didn’t mean that much to her. Maybe he was the oddball. Maybe the idea was obsolete that making love should mean more than just a thrill like a ride on a roller coaster. But he had expected more class from Betty.
Then the girl groaned sleepily and turned, and a tangle of blonde hair spilled across the pillow. Hal felt a relief so strong it was as though someone had thrown cold water on him, and he sat down heavily on his bunk. It wasn’t Betty Axley. Thank God.
But why should he even care? What was wrong with him? He had left her last night because he was in love with Crystal Buehler. So why should he now be filled with joyous relief because the girl was not Betty? What the hell was wrong with him?
He did not want the others to know he had seen the girl, so he hurried with his dressing, left the barracks, and walked through the night to the waiting 6X6, which idled wispy exhaust fumes into the chill air outside squadron headquarters. Hal climbed in the back and huddled against the cold.
A short time later, the other lead and deputy-lead officers stumbled out of the darkness and piled in, with Fox growling about the damned war and why the hell couldn’t they run it at a decent hour.
The lead crews from the other squadrons were already in the mess hall. They filled their trays and ate morosely. When they spoke, their voices were low. Their doleful mood was not solely because this was 0200 of a Sunday morning after a Saturday night party. There had been other parties, other Sunday morning missions. But today there was a somber mood of distrust as though some unseen oracle had told them that this was going to be a bad day.
O’Reilly took a few bites of cold potatoes and washed them down with hot, black coffee. Then he looked around the table at the grim faces of the fliers as though measuring the degree of depression. Suddenly he looked at Hal. “Did you happen to take a look in my bunk, cowboy?”
“If you mean did I see the girl, the answer is yes.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“I saw who it wasn’t, if that’s what you’re getting at?”
O’Reilly grinned. “Damn. I was hoping for a good fight.”
“A fight? Why would I want to fight?”
“I thought I detected a few sparks flying between you and her.”
“If you did, they were all on her side.”
“You talk about sparks,” Fox said, “how did you make out with that nurse? Jeeeesssuuss! That is some woman.”
Hal saw the opportunity to swing the conversation away from Betty Axley, and he smiled at Fox. “Well, I got Major Deering car’s back to him without blowing it up. Thank God, it had an autopilot.”
O’Reilly said, “Maybe you survived the night, but I’m not sure your brother’s going to let you survive the day.”
“Yeah,” Fox agreed. “The best thing that
could happen to you today is to get shot. That way, you’d end up in the hospital with her, and Bailey couldn’t get his hands on you.”
“Ah, my brother’s a big pussy cat. You guys just don’t know him like I do.”
“Yeah,” O’Reilly grinned. “And I don’t want to know him the way you’re going to.”
“Tell you what,” Fox said. “Get me a date with her. That way, he’ll have to beat up on two of us.”
“Make that three,” O’Reilly chipped in. “If we work this right, he’ll have to fight the whole damn group.”
“No, he won’t,” Cossel said. “She could kill you all herself.”
Fox sighed. “Yeah, but what a way to go.”
O’Reilly laughed, and it was as though he had punched a magic button because the voices of other crewmen grew louder, and there were bursts of laughter. Once again, Hal was amazed at O’Reilly’s ability to control the mood of a room. Among bomber crewmen or any men in battle for that matter, morale was always in a delicate balance. The smallest incident, the smallest rumor, could change the mood of an entire squadron or group with incredible speed. The mood could spread without visible communication, infecting everyone on the base: fliers, ground crews, and paddlefeet alike. Something in their sensory systems caused humans to sense the minute swings of a mood as quickly and accurately as a barometer senses minute changes in air pressure. And once a bad mood was established, it was almost impossible to change. There were a few individuals who could do it. O’Reilly was one of them. He knew this. And, thus far, he had used his ability to relieve unbearable tension. But, as Hal had seen during their encounter in the latrine, O’Reilly could also use it to provoke tension.
But it was always calculated, always controlled. It was inconceivable to even imagine O’Reilly out of control. Strangely, men with the Irishman’s qualities did not always, automatically, move to the top rungs of command. Perhaps it was the don’t-give-a-damn attitude that made them what they were that also made them reject the heavy responsibility of command. Or reject having to deal with stupidity. Too bad, there were not enough O’Reilly’s to go around.
Major Deering and Colonel Sutton, along with the other squadron commanders, were already in the briefing room.
Luke was there talking to another squadron commander. When he saw O’Reilly and his crew come in, he turned his back. O’Reilly poked Hal with his elbow. “I think your brother has a personality problem.”
“I hope he keeps it. I don’t want to talk to him.”
O’Reilly grinned, and Hal found himself basking in O’Reilly’s approval.
When he had their attention, Colonel Sutton began reading the TWX from Wing. At the mention of the target, the tension that had gone out of the mess hall surged back like a virus of fear. Politz. They had all heard of the oil refinery north of Berlin. It was one of the toughest targets in the ETO, protected by more than a thousand flak guns, a graveyard for B-17s and their crews. At the sudden hush in the room, Colonel Sutton stopped reading the TWX and looked up. He saw their faces and smiled. “Don’t look so eager. We’ve got to save something for the RAF.”
“The RAF can have that place,” Captain Stutzman said. “I will make them a present of it.”
“You an’ me,” Fox added. “Anytime you say, ‘oil refinery,’ I’m cutting out for the tall timber.”
“They don’t have timber in Texas,” O’Reilly said. “Even the dogs have got to use people’s legs. That’s why you Texans are all bowlegged.”
Fox scratched his head. “Is that the reason? I thought it was because our balls are so heavy.” He laughed, and the other crewmen chuckled. Hal wondered if O’Reilly and Fox had used the routine before. Either way, it worked.
“Politz?” one of the new crewmen asked. “Isn’t that where those B-24s got clobbered last year?”
“No,” Deering said. “You’re thinking of Ploesti in Rumania. Our target today is the biggest oil refinery in Germany. And the best defended.”
“You had to tell me,” O’Reilly said, and someone laughed shortly.
Colonel Sutton finished reading the TWX, and the crewmen separated into groups to make their separate preparations. Hal and the other bombardiers were shown slides of detailed target information and the surrounding countryside.
“As near as we can tell, weather conditions should be ideal. Good visibility,” Major Deering concluded. “But that means their Luftwaffenhelfers will get a visual shot at you as well as their radar. Our information shows that they can bring hundreds of 88- and 105-millimeter guns to bear at one time. They also have 105-millimeters guns on rail cars they can bring up. And it’s reported they have 128-millimeter heavy guns. But you can’t loosen up your formation because they’ll probably throw up every fighter they have. Other than that, it’s a milk run.”
The men were somber when they broke out of the main briefing, but in the Equipment Room, some of the flight crew’s usual rowdiness returned. Looking around at the wise-cracking, boisterous fliers as they pulled on flying gear and fitted oxygen masks, Hal was reminded of a college locker room before the big football game. You might be one of the unlucky ones, but if you were, those left would shrug and clear your bunk and footlocker and go on with the game. Those were the rules.
At O’Reilly’s “Mongrel House,” he met the new waist-gunner, a gangling thirty-year-old from Virginia named Pitman. This was his first mission, but if he had any fears, he concealed them behind a casual drawl and easy, languid movements.
“I hope you can hit something with those things,” Osborne said as he watched Pitman assemble his guns with professional ease.
“I figure if I c’n see ’em I c’n hit ’em,” Pitman answered shortly. He fed the heavy belt of fifty-caliber cartridges in place and snapped the bolt cover down expertly.
Osborne grunted approval and began checking the ring gear on his ball turret. “You’ve got no worries,” he said over his shoulder. “Lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Now, Caplinger has really got a worry. So far, nobody’s come within five feet’a his tail.”
“And that includes in London,” Chief Gorno added.
They were still bantering about who had been shot at the most when Hal finished the oxygen system check and made his way back into the nose. As before they were carrying twelve M-43 500-pound bombs.
The mission was a long one . . . more than eight hours in the air . . . and they were carrying a full fuel load of 100 octane fuel, including full Tokyo tanks, which were small tanks situated between the spars at the outer ends of the wings.
This time when O’Reilly prepared for takeoff, he and Fox held the brakes on while they built up power. Precisely 30 seconds after the plane ahead of them had begun its takeoff, they released the brakes, and ‘O’Reilly’s “Mongrel House” reluctantly began to move.
From his perch in the nose, Hal listened to the straining full-throttled roar of the engines and tried with body English to help the heavily laden ship gather speed. But, God, it was slow. Halfway down the runway, they appeared to be scarcely moving, and Polazzo’s urging to “Come on, baby. Come on.” seemed eminently necessary.
Just as Hal was convinced that it was too late and they were all going to die, the big ship broke free of the runway’s grip and edged into the air in a climb so low they barely cleared the barbed wire fence marking the border of the field.
“Okay,” O’Reilly said on the intercom. “Everybody who bet we wouldn’t make it, pay up.”
During the long climb to rendezvous altitude, listening to the conversation on the intercom, Hal was once again struck with the illusion that it was all a macabre game. No one complained. No one cursed his luck. The only cursing was at a jammed gun bolt or a comment that a ship off their wing was in the wrong friggin’ slot. Hal wondered if he would ever become so nonchalant about flying off on a journey of death or, worse, to be cripple
d like Adel. Were there people who never knew fear? Probably not. Anyone with an imagination knew fear. The trick seemed to be in ignoring or denying the fear, holding it at bay until deadly action dredged it to the surface. And then . . . hopefully, resolve worked out in advance would take over.
He was still listening to the chatter with admiration as O’Reilly settled the big Fort into position as leader of the low squadron and began the endless ring-around-the-rosy over ‘Buncher 3’ while the other ships edged into their positions.
The intercom had been silent for some time when Caplinger abruptly said, “We got a good chance of gettin’ clobbered on this one, ain’t we, skipper?”
O’Reilly laughed. “Hell, no. We’re the heroes. And everybody knows heroes never get hurt.”
“Yeah, but do them krauts know we’re the heroes?”
“If they don’t, they’ll soon find out.”
Osborne said, “I hope they get the message loud and clear.”
When the tip of a huge red sun pushed above the misty horizon of Europe and struck sparks from aluminum and Plexiglas, they completed the assembly and swung away in a wide curve toward the coast and the North Sea. Behind the group, the contrails stretched for miles in the cold empty void.
As far as Hal could see were miniature groups of B-17s. From such a distance, the big bombers appeared to be stable platforms, but inside each one, the pilot and co-pilot were sweating over the controls, fighting with throttles and stick to keep their heavily laden bomber tucked into its slot. It was an unforgiving, perpetual task, For the air was a fluid medium, and as the big planes pushed through its mass, their bulk and their propellers roiled the air like the wake of a ship plowing through the sea so that each bomber was subject to the forces of an invisible shifting, changing sea. It looked easy, but after hours of formation flying, the pilots were drenched in sweat and mentally and physically exhausted.
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