Rush to Glory

by Robert L Hecker

  He knelt and cradled her against his chest. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  Her unblinking eyes swiveled to look at him. Gradually they focused, suddenly flooding with tears. “Hal?”

  “Yes,” he said. He took off his gloves and took her face between the palms of his icily cold hands. “Yes. It’s me.”

  “You and that lieutenant. I thought you were both . . .” Her voice broke. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Just knocked out. I’m okay now.” That wasn’t exactly true. His head still hurt like hell, and he was sure he was slowly freezing to death. She had to be equally cold. Like him, she had taken off her flak suit but had her chest pack parachute buckled in place. Good. Her best chance of survival was to get out of the plane. “Look. We’ve only got two engines. And one of them is smoking. You’d better bail out. We’re over Holland. Maybe you’ll be picked up by the underground.”

  “What about you? Are you going with me?”

  He shook his head. “Luke’s going to try to make it back. I’ve got to stay with him. To stop him. To tell them what he did.”

  “Then I’m staying too.”

  Hal had an impulse to pick her up and throw her out of the plane. Her chances of survival would be a hell of a lot better.

  But if they did make it back to England, her testimony would be invaluable.

  He stood up and held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Her eyes swung to look past him, and she shivered. “Oh, God, yes.”

  He helped her to her feet and, studiously avoiding looking at Chief Gorno and MacGruder; they ducked through the door into the radio room. In the bomb bay, he steadied her as they inched along the catwalk. He stopped her at the door to the cockpit and put his mouth close to her ear so that she could hear him above the keening wind.

  “Before we go in, remember . . . Polazzo’s dead. So is O’Reilly.”

  She nodded. The color had come back into her face, and her eyes were clear and bright. “I know. I’ll be all right.”

  He pushed open the door and helped her through the narrow opening. As they edged past the engineer’s body, Hal stopped and stared at the command radio. When he had left the cockpit, it was intact. Now it looked as though it had been hit by shrapnel. It was battered, crushed, wires dangling. Luke had effectively destroyed any evidence that he could have received the order to divert the mission to the secondary target.

  As they stopped behind the cockpit seats, Luke turned his head. “How is it back there?”

  What good would it do to confront his brother about the radio? He would only deny that he had caused the damage. The presence of the flak holes and the dead crewmen would give credence to his story that the damage had been caused by enemy fire. Now there was only his word against theirs about what had happened.

  He noticed that Betty Axley was staring at the shattered radio with a puzzled expression as though she was trying to remember whether the radio had looked like that when she had left the cockpit.

  Before Hal could tell her what had happened, O’Reilly groaned and tried to lift his head.

  Hal stared at him, praying that his eyes were not deceiving him. Luke was also looking at O’Reilly, his brows knotted with worry. If O’Reilly were alive, he could put the final nail in his coffin.

  Hal reached toward O’Reilly, but Betty was quicker. She wedged herself into the space between the seats behind the control pedestal and gently helped O’Reilly lift his head.

  The Irishman’s breath came in ragged gasps. The right side of his chest next to the shattered window was bloody, and his right arm flopped loosely, blood dripping from his fingertips.

  “Give him some oxygen,” Hal said.

  Betty pulled O’Reilly’s oxygen mask into place, and Hal reached around the seat to the oxygen regulator and turned it from ‘Auto-Mix’ to ‘Off.’ Betty saw where he had placed the switch and stared at him accusingly.

  “That’ll give him pure oxygen,” he explained. “Hold his mask on tight.”

  She nodded and pressed the mask tightly into place. After a moment, O’Reilly blinked, and his eyes turned to look at her. Slowly he lifted his left hand and took over the task of holding his oxygen mask in place. He took two or three more gasps of oxygen, his eyes focused on Betty’s anxious face, only inches from his own. He let go of the oxygen mask, which swung aside as he put his hand behind Betty’s head and pulled her forward so that he could place his lips on hers.

  Taken totally by surprise, Betty pulled away abruptly. “Stop that!” she said.

  “Thank God,” O’Reilly whispered. “I thought you were an angel.”

  Betty stared at O’Reilly incredulously. Then her lips curved into a smile, and she shook her head. “You Yanks. I can’t believe you. Even when you’re half dead, all you think about is sex.”

  “Half. Hell, I thought I was all dead.” O’Reilly tried to straighten and winced, the blood draining from his face. “Maybe I’m closer than I thought,” he whispered.

  Hal pulled O’Reilly’s oxygen mask back into place. “Here. Keep this on.”

  O’Reilly reached to hold it, then turned his head to look at Hal, and his eyes widened. He looked down toward the nose section and back at Hal. “She said you were dead.”

  “She thought I was. Cossel is. So are Polazzo, MacGruder, and the chief. The others bailed out.”

  O’Reilly’s eyes flicked across the instrument panel. He turned to Luke. “How about it, mon capitaine? Are we going to make it?”

  Luke gestured toward the smoking number three engine. “I doubt it. We’ve lost the number one; three is losing oil, and the number two is running rough. If either of them go . . . It might be better to bail out while we’re over land.”

  “Where are we?”

  “I figure Belgium or Holland.”

  Betty Axley said, “Maybe you’d better do it. If we have to ditch . . .”

  She did not complete the sentence. They all realized that O’Reilly could not survive in the freezing water.

  “You’ll have a better chance in a German hospital,” Luke said. “You might even get picked up by Dutch underground.”

  O’Reilly glanced at the fluctuating oil pressure gauges for the number two and the three engines and nodded. “Tell them to save my address book. I’ll be back.”

  Before they attempted to move O’Reilly, Hal opened one of the first aid kits and gave him a shot of morphine. Then, with Betty’s and Hal’s assistance, O’Reilly was able to remove his flak suit, unfasten his seat harness and get out of the seat. Under the best circumstance, it was a struggle for anyone to get in or out of the cockpit seats while wearing a backpack parachute. Now, with O’Reilly weak from loss of blood, the problem was compounded, and he had to fight back a groan of pain with every move despite the powerful analgesic effect of the morphine.

  When at last O’Reilly was standing in the cockpit, supported by Hal, they were able to get a better look at his wound. The shrapnel, after smashing through the window, had hit O’Reilly’s right arm a glancing blow, breaking it above the elbow before it had slammed into his chest. His flak vest had taken most of the force, but some of the shrapnel had found the opening on the right side where the vest ended and, cutting through his leather jacket and shirt, had smashed into his right side. He could have punctured lungs and cracked or broken ribs. But most of the bleeding had stopped. If he received immediate medical treatment, he should be all right.

  “Open the bay doors,” Hal said to Luke.

  Luke shook his head. “Too much drag. Use the nose hatch.”

  “He can’t make it through the hatch.”

  “Sure, he can.”

  Hal stared at his brother, almost blinded by a flaring rage. “Open the fuckin’ doors, or I’ll do it myself.”

  Luke
glanced at Betty as though to judge her reaction before he reached for the emergency salvo handle and jammed it to open. The ship staggered as the bomb bay doors came open, and the slipstream was sucked into the gaping maw. Luke went to work on the throttles as Hal and Betty helped O’Reilly past Polazzo. He opened the cockpit door to the bomb bay against a roar of swirling wind.

  Hal hooked on his chute and went through the door first. He edged out on the catwalk, where the wind tried to claw him from the narrow steel beam. He tried not to look down. He was wearing his chest-pack chute, but, even so, being suspended over the yawning void was a horror come true.

  With Betty’s help, they were able to ease O’Reilly through the door so that he was sitting on the edge of the small step, his legs dangling in space. Between O’Reilly’s boots, Hal caught a glimpse of green fields far below. They were over farmland, dotted with villages. That would be a help. The German occupation forces were concentrated in the larger cities. If O’Reilly landed in a rural area, he had a better chance of being picked up by members of the Dutch resistance.

  Hal used adhesive tape from the first aid kit to tape O’Reilly’s broken arm tight against his side so that it would not flail during his descent. He secured the remainder of the kit in O’Reilly’s jacket pocket. “Keep this,” he shouted above the roaring wind. “You can give yourself another shot when you get on the ground.”

  O’Reilly tried to smile. “You sure you can’t drop me somewhere over France. I know how to say couche avec moi.”

  “Don’t worry,” Betty shouted. “They’ll understand you.”

  O’Reilly reached up with his left hand and grasped his parachute’s D-ring. “Geronimo,” he said and slipped into the void.

  Hal made himself watch O’Reilly fall, wondering if he would have the guts to step into nothingness. Far below, he saw O’Reilly chute blossom, and Betty exclaimed, “He made it. He made it.”

  He was preparing to duck back through the door into the safety of the cockpit when there was a loud report like a dynamite blast, and the big ship lurched in agony. Hal flinched in alarm and almost toppled from the catwalk. He saved himself by desperately grabbing the inboard bomb rack with both hands.

  The sudden lurch had propelled Betty partially through the door, and she was sprawled face down over the sill, her body inside the bomb bay, and her legs in the cockpit. The big ship settled to an even keel, and Hal released his grip on the bomb rack. He had to help Betty. He was edging toward her when Luke appeared in the doorway. His face was red and sweaty, his eyes wide with alarm.

  “Get out,” he yelled. “Number three’s on fire.”

  Fire! Hal’s memory flashed with a picture of Fox’s ship blowing up. He had to get out! He had to step into his nightmare.

  He looked down, willing himself to go. Betty! He couldn’t leave her.

  She struggled to regain her footing, and he moved forward to help her. Then Hal saw Luke’s face. Luke was lifting Betty, helping her, and a smile had replaced his look of alarm. The truth hit Hal instantly. There was nothing wrong with the engine. There was no fire. The ship was on autopilot, and Luke was trying to get rid of the witnesses!

  Hal snarled in rage. “Let go! Let her go!”

  He lunched forward, reaching for Betty. Too late. Her eyes were wide with terror as Luke shoved her, and she was sucked into the empty sky.

  Hal’s cry of rage was lost in the wind as he clawed at his brother. His only thought was revenge. There was no emptiness below; there were no icy metal walls; there was no rushing, grasping wind. There was only Luke! He smashed at Luke’s face, feeling his fists impact with bone.

  Luke ignored the blows. He reached through the doorway and grabbed Hal by the shoulder and the strap of his chute harness and twisted, trying to throw Hal off the catwalk.

  Terror shot through Hal. He was going to fall. Luke’s face was inches from his, and he stared into his brother’s blazing eyes and gritted teeth, and his terror burst forth in a snarl of fear and anger. With an adrenaline-charged burst of strength, he grabbed Luke’s chute-harness just as Luke pushed him off the catwalk, and they both tumbled into space!

  CHAPTER 24

  In a sense, Hal considered himself lucky. He had not only survived the bailout, making a hard landing in a field of cabbages near a small wood, but he had not been immediately picked up by German soldiers. Gathering up his chute, he ran into the woods. Using a stick, he gouged out a shallow hole in the soft earth and buried the chute along with his Mae West, parachute harness, oxygen mask, and throat mike. As he worked, he thought about his next move. He wanted to find Betty, but she would be miles away. And Luke? During his descent, he had looked for Luke’s chute, and he thought he had seen it far below as though Luke had delayed opening it until he was near the ground. That was the logical thing to do. That way, German patrols had less time to spot a parachute or to find the chutist after he landed.

  Luke, of course, would think of those things while he was falling. Hal’s thoughts had been only on getting his chute open, cutting the horror of falling as short as possible. He remembered clearly the sharp joy that had accompanied the shock of the chute opening.

  Hal was still kneeling on the ground after the burial of his chute, when a harsh voice said, “Amerikan?”

  Hal looked up. A thick-waisted, bearded man was standing over him with a three-tined pitchfork in his hands; the tines pointed at Hal’s throat like stilettos. He was undoubtedly a farmer, probably the one who owned the land. But was he a friend or an enemy?

  Hal nodded and raised his muddy hands shoulder high. “Yes. American.”

  Thank heavens it was a Dutch farmer who had found him and not a German. After being shot down over Europe, hundreds of English and American fliers had managed to escape and relate their experiences. They reported that life in the prisoner of war camps, or Stalags, was harsh but bearable. Even so, the escapee’s advice to the troops was: don’t get captured. And if you were captured, stay out of the hands of German civilians. They had been known to execute captured Terrorfliegers as allied airmen were called. The worst were members of Hitler Youth organizations. Children ranging in age from ten to fifteen were often armed, and they could be vicious. There were numerous rumors and many confirmed stories of children mutilating and murdering captured airmen.

  If you were picked up by a German patrol, you should not be stupid and try to fight. A Colt .45 was no match for a dozen Mauser Kar-98Ks.

  There was another reason why fliers wished to avoid capture, especially during the early days of the war. Each crewman represented hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars spent in training. If they could escape, they would not only save the cost in time and money of training a replacement by they would also bring their experience to the aid of others.

  Even so, airmen received virtually no formal instruction regarding evasion and escape. Most information was obtained by word of mouth from other fliers. Each airman was supposed to carry an escape kit containing maps and a few French francs, but the kits were not always available. When they were, the fliers usually forgot to pick them up from the Equipment Room. And if you were forced to bail out, the last thing you had on your mind was trying to locate an escape kit you had stowed somewhere.

  If you were lucky enough to land in France, Denmark, Holland or Belgium, you might be picked up by somebody with connections to the underground who could help you escape.

  Trying to remember all the instructions irritated Hal. The thing you needed most if you made it to earth in one piece was not a map nor money. It was luck.

  The farmer glanced around. Then he swung the pitchfork up, and Hal cringed, remembering what had happened to other downed airmen. Kneeling on the damp earth, he was helpless. But the farmer dropped the tines low and began forking leaves over the raw earth where Hal had buried his equipment, and Hal sagged in relief.

  When the area was p
oliced to the farmer’s satisfaction, he jerked his head at Hal. “Komen,” he said.

  The farmer led Hal through the woods, skirting the open field. As they walked, Hal asked, “Do you speak English?”

  The farmer shook his head. “Nein. No English.”

  Hal pointed at himself, then at the sky. “Others? You . . . see . . . more?”

  The farmer’s eyebrows lifted in understanding. But Hal’s heart sank when he shook his head. “Nein,” he said. “No . . . more.”

  On the other side of the small forest was a large, stone farmhouse. Near a wooden barn, there was a stack of dried alfalfa that looked as though it had just been brought in from the fields. A two-wheeled wagon was near the stack, its single horse standing with its head down. The farmer had been unloading it when he had seen Hal’s descent.

  Now he motioned to Hal to get into the wagon and lie down. When Hal did so, the farmer used his pitchfork to cover him with a layer of sweet-smelling alfalfa. By cradling his head in his arms, he had no trouble breathing.

  He felt the cart rock as the farmer climbed into the seat and clucked the horse into motion. Hal wondered where he was being taken. Was he a fool to trust the man? If the man intended to turn him in to the Germans, he probably wouldn’t have bothered concealing him. Or would he? Hal was doing exactly what the man wanted without a struggle. He could only hope that he had been lucky enough to fall into the hands of the Dutch underground. He would soon know.

  After approximately fifteen minutes by Hal’s estimate, the wagon stopped, and he felt it shift as the farmer climbed to the ground, and he heard him walk away on a hard surface.

  Hal lay quietly, wondering if the next sound he heard would be a German rifle bolt slamming a cartridge into its firing chamber. He heard footsteps returning, and he tensed. The voice of the farmer said, “Ooot.”

  Hal got his legs and arms under him and heaved up through the alfalfa, expecting the worst. He saw that the wagon had stopped behind a large stone building with a cross on the roof—a church. The farmer was standing next to the wagon. There were no soldiers. Instead, an elderly priest . . . or, more likely, a Calvinist minister . . . wearing a black cassock was standing in the rear door of the church. He motioned Hal to come. Climbing out of the wagon hurt his head, but he ignored the pain as he hurried across the damp courtyard. Entering the church, he heard the wagon being driven away.