Hal saw that he was in a narrow room that he assumed was behind the church’s altar. When the priest closed the door, it was very dark, and he took hold of Hal’s arm. “Come,” he said. “Be careful.”
He steered Hal to the far end of the room and opened a door. Hal’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, and he was able to follow the priest down a flight of cement steps. His step sent a jolt of pain through his head, and he was glad when they entered a small room. There were dusty shelves on three sides that had held bottles of wine. All were now empty. A small table and a wooden bench occupied most of the floor space.
“Sit,” the priest said. “Vait.”
Hal sank wearily to the bench. He was suddenly so tired he wasn’t sure he could stand a minute longer. The priest turned to go, and Hal said, “Wait. There are three anothers. One is an English woman.”
The priest stared at him. “A woman?”
“Yes. A reporter. With the BBC.”
At the mention of the BBC, suspicion left the priest’s eyes. “Ahh, the BBC.” He shook his head. “You are only von. But ve look. Vait.”
He went out and closed the door, plunging the room into blackness. Hal slumped on the hard bench, trying to sort out what had happened. He should be blessing his extraordinarily good luck. He was alive and, except for the cut on the back of his head—which had settled into a dull aching pain—he was unhurt and had a good chance of staying out of a German Stalag. The plane would undoubtedly crash in the North Sea and, oh God, taking Cossel and MacGruder and Chief Gorno with it.
Why should he be the one to survive? The one to escape capture? He was certainly less deserving than any of them? It should be O’Reilly sitting here. Or Fox. Cossel. Any of them. But not him.
The one bright spot was that Luke might have been picked up by the Germans. If so, the war would be over for him. He would never again be able to send men to their deaths.
But the thought that gave Hal the most anguish was of Betty Axley. She had been wearing her parachute when Luke had pushed her out of the ship. If she had kept her wits, she would have opened it. Then what? If she had been picked up by the Germans, they would wonder what the devil a woman was doing onboard an American B-17. It wouldn’t take long for the SS or the Gestapo to find out. Then what would they do with her? Execute her as a spy? Could they do that? She was in uniform. Besides, she could explain why she was on board. If they believed her, she would probably end up in some German prison. If not . . .
He estimated he had been in the cellar less than an hour when he heard the door open, and dim light illuminated the small room. He stood up quickly and backed against a wall lined with empty wine racks. Was it the priest returning? Or Germans? Hal weighted his chances of putting up a fight. It would probably be tantamount to suicide. A German soldier would certainly not be alone; taking out the first man through the door would only get him killed by the rest of the patrol.
There were two of them, partially silhouetted in the dim light. As they came down the stairs, he could see the legs and then the body of the one in the lead. It was another flier, also wearing fleece-lined boots and B-3 jacket. But who? Luke? It had to be Luke.
Then he saw the face, and his breath caught in his throat. “Oh, my God. Betty!”
He sprang forward and pulled her into his arms, holding her fiercely, letting his anguish evaporate in an ecstasy of relief.
Gradually he became aware that she was whispering, “Oh God, Hal. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
The priest crossed to one of the wine racks and took a stubby candle and matches from an empty bin. He lit the candle and set it on a small table in one corner.
“Please,” he said. “Remain here. Talk,” . . .he gestured with his hands . . . “not loud.”
He went back up the stairs and closed the door behind him.
Abruptly Hal leaned away from Betty, not yet ready to let her go. He searched her face. Her eyes were wide and luminous in the candlelight. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You’re not hurt?”
“No, no. I’m fine. Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“What happened to . . . your brother?”
“I don’t know. We fell out together.”
“Fell?”
“He tried to throw me out. I took him with me.”
“He had his chute?”
“Yes. He’s probably all right.”
She moved away, her teeth gripping her lower lip, then turned to face him. “I hope the Germans got him.”
“If they didn’t, if he gets back to England, I’m going to see that he faces a court-martial.”
“On what grounds? That he got his men killed? Commanders do that all the time.” Her voice was bitter and harsh with sarcasm.
“He disobeyed orders. We were ordered to hit the secondary. You know that.”
“He’ll say he didn’t receive the order.”
“We know he did.”
“But to prove it, we’ll have to get back.” She paused, realizing that their chances of getting back were small. Then she said, “But why did he try to throw you out? It was going to crash; you’d both have to jump.”
“I don’t think it was. I think he cut the number three engine and let it windmill so we’d think it was going to crash. After we were out, I think he would have re-started it. He might have been able to make it all the way back to England. If he didn’t, if he got close, he had a good chance of being picked up by Air-Sea Rescue. Actually, it would be better for him if he did have to ditch. All the evidence would be at the bottom of the North Sea.”
“Or here.”
“Yes. But we’d either be German prisoners, or it would take weeks for the Dutch underground to get us out. By that time, it’d be ancient history.”
“Well, either way, it’ll make a wizard story.”
Hal could not believe her composure. Her clothes and her face were smudged with dried mud, her nails broken. She still wore her flight helmet, but long strands of hair had escaped its confines and were framing her face. In the candlelight, they glowed like wisps of sunset clouds. In the bulky flying clothes, she looked so much like a forlorn waif that Hal longed to take her in his arms. But he was not sure she would like that. The moment when she had first clung to him had probably been nothing more than an instinctive sense of relief that he was alive and that she would not have to endure alone whatever was ahead. She would have greeted O’Reilly the same way. Maybe even Luke.
“How did you manage to escape the German patrols?” Betty asked. “They were everywhere.”
“Just luck. I landed practically in the back yard of a farmer. He put me in a wagon of hay and brought me here.”
“That’s about what happened to me. The farmer was friendly enough; only he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”
“Can’t say that I blame him. You can guess what they’d do to him . . . and his family . . . if he got caught helping you.”
“I know.” She took off her helmet and ran her fingers through her tangled hair in a nervous gesture. “Worse than for us.”
“Did you hear anything about Luke or O’Reilly?” he asked
Betty shook her head. “No. But if the Germans picked up either one of them, they might be searching for other survivors.”
“Maybe. They’d have no way of knowing how many bailed out.”
“Except that the pilot usually goes last.”
“Good point.” His gaze was drawn toward the closed door. The next time it opened, it could be by a German patrol. “Do you think the Dutch will turn us in?”
“Not likely. There’s no love lost between the Dutch and the Nazis. There have been very few Dutch collaborators. Anton Mussert and his Nazi Party are about the only ones. The Dutch . . . and the Belgians . . . have probably helped more airmen escape than anybody
. The churches have been very much involved. The Danes have also been active. If we were in Denmark, we’d have a good chance of making it to Sweden.”
“What’s the escape route from here?”
“It could go either of three ways: north through Denmark to Sweden, or south through France to Spain.”
“More likely since D-day, they’d only take us as far as Normandy where we could join up with the Americans or British.”
“A passage of lines? That might not be easy.”
“I guess we’d just sit tight somewhere and wait to be overrun. What’s the third way?”
“By boat. Across the North Sea. Or far enough out so you could get picked up by Air-Sea Rescue. Provided you could get a boat in the first place and provided you didn’t get picked up by a German patrol boat.”
Their speculation was cut short by the sound of footsteps outside the door. They glanced at each other, wondering who might enter. Would it be the priest bringing the hope of escape? Or a German soldier with a naked bayonet.
The door opened, and the priest came down the steps closely followed by a barrel-chested man wearing a blue shop-keepers smock. The priest smiled at them, then said something to the man in Dutch. The man stared at them warily as he asked a question which the priest answered with a nod and a brief explanation. Hal had the impression by his gestures that he was saying that they had been seen landing in parachutes. He indicated Betty and Hal heard the words “BBC.”
The man was not satisfied. His voice was guttural and hard as he gestured to Hal and Betty. “Turn around,” he said in good English. “Lean against the vall.”
They did as they were told, leaning with their palms against the dusty wine racks. The man searched Hal carefully. Like most airmen, Hal did not carry papers that could be of interest to the Germans. But the man was not looking for papers. He was searching for weapons. But he took a close look at Hal’s head wound.
When he finished with Hal, he made an equally thorough search of Betty. His hands were impersonal as they moved over her body so that she was able to stare straight ahead without flinching.
When the man stepped back, he said, “All right.”
They straightened and turned to face him. His eyes above the dark beard continued to be hard and suspicious. “Your dok tags. Show me your dok tags.”
Hal unbuttoned his shirt and pulled his dog tags from under his thermal underwear where they hung from a thin stainless-steel chain. The man stepped forward and examined them carefully.
He grunted and turned to Betty, who had also extracted her British I.D. tags.
After studying her tags, the man said, “You are British. Vat you doing on American bomber?”
“Observer,” Betty said shortly. “BBC.”
The man stared at her as though he could read the truth of her statement in her face. He decided to take a chance that they were not German spies because he said, “Vat happen your airplane?”
“Probably in the North Sea by now,” Hal said. “We lost two engines. Another was on fire. We decided to bail out over land.”
“Vat type airplane?”
“B-17.”
“Your mission?”
Hal hesitated. Should he hold back that kind of information even though it would help confirm their identity? Then he realized that the Dutch Underground would surely know the targets that had been hit. “Dusseldorf,” he said.
The man stared at them silently, making up his mind. Abruptly, he said, “You vill remain here until the night. Someone vill bring you foot.”
He and the priest went out and closed the door. Hal wondered if they locked it behind them. He climbed to the door and tried the knob. It was locked. “I guess they don’t trust us,” he said.
“I wouldn’t either. They’re probably with the RuZ.”
“RuZ?”
“They’re a Dutch resistance organization. I think they’re a militant branch of the L.O., ‘The Welfare Organization For Those In Hiding.’”
“You think they can get us out?”
“Probably. They’ve smuggled out hundreds of airmen. They’re probably using short wave radio to check on our I.D.s at this moment.”
“Yeah. If I were them, I’d be damn careful.”
“Yes. The Germans would love to introduce a couple of spies into the L.O.’s network.”
“They’d have to be pretty dumb to send a woman.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I mean, there aren’t any women on aircrews.”
“I think that’s what’s got them in a tizzy. It’s not logical for a woman to be aboard a B-17.”
“Either way, they won’t move us until it gets dark. This time of the year, that won’t be until around twenty-one hundred.”
Betty sat down on the wooden bench with a sigh. “If they don’t bring us something to eat, all they’re going find is a bunch of bones.”
Hal realized how tired and hungry she must be. They had been under constant tension since 0300 that morning. Now, with their first chance to rest, he, too, felt drained of energy.
“What do you think our chances are?” he asked.
“I think they’re good.” She paused, then added, “If they really are RuZ.”
“What do you mean? Why else would they save us from the Germans?”
“If they’re collaborators, they might want to use us. Or maybe they’re holding out for a reward from the German Security Police.”
Hal thought of the locked door. “The thought had crossed my mind. But there isn’t a hell of a lot we can do about it.”
She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Hal sat down beside her on the bench. He was bone-weary, and his head hurt, but it was a feeling of guilt that kept him from relaxing. “I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said.
She turned her head toward him and opened her eyes. “Got me into this? I was working on this mission long before I ever met you.”
“I know. I mean being responsible for you being on this particular mission. On my ship.”
“Coincidence. I was scheduled for today with the 401st Bomb Group. Being in the lead ship was Colonel Sutton’s idea. I didn’t know you’d be the bombardier.”
Could that be true? Hal wanted desperately to believe it was. It would mean that he was not responsible for her being here, perhaps even for a long period in a prisoner of war camp.
Then it occurred to him that it also meant that she had not chosen this mission, had not chosen his ship because she wanted to be near him or because she wanted to help him. It had been strictly the luck of the draw. Well, what did he expect: that she was so much in love with him she couldn’t stay away? Except for that one wonderful night together, they were strangers. Besides, how many other soldiers had she helped in the same way? If it hadn’t been for the mission . . . prearranged as she had said . . . she probably would never have seen him again.
Why should such a thought fill him with a terrible depression? Was he in love with her? That wonderful morning: could he have performed as he had; could he have made love with such intensity if he hadn’t been in love? But, then, he probably would have fallen in love with any girl who had done for him what she had. Wouldn’t he? God. In another life, another place, there would be time to sort out the answers. But now . . . When this mission was over, one way or the other, their relationship would also be over. She would go back to her war just as he would to his, and they would never see each other again.
Except that there was the matter of Luke. The one thing that could bring Betty Axley back into his life was a court-martial. And that would be because of a court order, not love.
Betty had fallen asleep, and Hal was fighting to stay awake when the door opened, and the man who had been with the priest came in carrying a large wicker basket. She did not awaken
when the man placed the basket on the small table. “Foot,” he said. He looked at Betty, and his face softened. “She is all right?”
“Yes. Just tired.”
“Goot.” He nodded toward the basket on the table. “Vake her up. You must eat. I be back in vone hour.”
He turned to go, and Hal asked, “Why is the door locked?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, then he smiled as he understood the reason for the question. His teeth were startlingly white against his dark skin. “The priest alvays keep door locked. If not locked, someone suspicious.” At the door, he paused and turned back. “Your pilot? Describe him.”
Hal was taken aback by the question. Describe Luke? If the man was not a member of the Dutch Underground, if he was German Gestapo, it might be a trick to help capture the other crew members. “I don’t think I should do that,” he said.
The man lifted his head, not expecting the answer. “Vhy you don’t tell?”
“I don’t know you.”
The man nodded, comprehending. “That is goot answer. I describe man. You tell me if correct?”
“That I think would be acceptable.”
“He is tall. Pilot’s vings on shirt. He was vounded. In chest.”
That could be Luke. Then he was alive. “Possibly,” he said.
“Oh yes. He has red hair.”
Red? My God. He was describing O’Reilly, not Luke. “Yes, yes,” he said, forgetting all his reservations. “His right arm was broken, taped to his body.”
“That is right.”
“Where is he? What happened to him?”
“He vas picked up by Cherman patrol. They take him to hospital for fliers. British doctors. He should be goot.”
Hal felt a profound sense of relief. At least one thing in this stupid war had gone right. The O’Reillys of this world should be immortal. But what about Luke?
Rush to Glory Page 36
