Alex Grenville had never felt quite as he did at that moment. He had slept little since his brush with death. The tour had brought him into contact with men that were facing death on a daily basis, and he realized the frailty of his own life, even though he was not a soldier. As he stood with the others at the chaplain’s request, he was trembling. His knees were weak, and he found it difficult to swallow. The chaplain said, “I’m going to pray. You pray, too. Ask God to forgive your sins because Jesus Christ received the wages of sin that were your due when he died on the cross. He did that so that he could give you eternal life as his gift. Accept his gift.” A shock ran across Alex as he felt Wendy grip his arm. He glanced at her quickly and saw that her head was bowed and that her lips were moving in prayer. Somehow that gave him hope. She really cares! he thought. She really cares what happens to me! It was a sign for him somehow, and resolutely he bowed his head and began to pray.
Wendy did not turn to look at him but felt the tenseness of his body. She felt that if he left this place without finding Christ, he might never be saved. She had prayed almost all night, and she prayed now. She glanced at him and, with a shock, saw tears running down his pale face. He was trembling.
Alex spoke, almost in agony, “Oh, God, have mercy on me in the name of Jesus.” He continued to pray, and Wendy took his hand and he gripped it so hard that it hurt her fingers. He took a sudden deep breath and turned to look at her. “Well, I’ve done it, Wendy. I don’t know where I go from here, but I know one thing. I’m going to follow Jesus, whatever else happens.”
“Oh, Alex, I’m so happy!” Wendy wanted to throw her arms around him but was very conscious of the others who would be watching. She whispered, “It’s going to be so wonderful, Alex; you’ll see!”
“You’ll have to help me, Wendy.”
“I will, Alex.”
Triumph swept through Wendy Stuart, for she realized that God had done the impossible. Salvation is always an impossible thing, a miracle—and now to see it in this man who had never loved God, who had fought against him all of his life, caused joy to fill her. She seemed to hear the Lord saying, “Well done, my daughter!” and this assurance from God gave her faith to face the future. The two stood under the blazing sun and saw others going to the front to be prayed for. Alex said, “Let’s go, too. I’ve got to make this thing public. I can’t be a Christian in secret.”
This, for Wendy, was the final evidence that Alex Grenville was serious. She said eagerly, “I’ll go with you, Alex.”
That day on that small island soldiers and marines gave their hearts to God—but there was something different about it when the young man and the young woman dressed in civilian clothes came forward. Everyone watched as the chaplain prayed for them, and somehow that service remained fixed in the minds of those marines as no other during the war.
As the plane winged over the blue waters of the Pacific, Wendy saw that Mona and Rob were sitting together and that the actor had his arm around her shoulder. So far as she knew, he had made no public statement about an engagement. Mona had said it was because he had to wait until after the divorce was final—but this had not satisfied Wendy. Her heart was heavy because of this, and she knew that Mona’s parents would be shocked and dismayed at what had occurred. There was nothing she could do except pray, and Wendy had prayed often for this wild cousin of hers.
A sudden touch on her arm turned her around, and she looked into Alex’s eyes. He asked, “You’re worried about Mona, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She hesitated for one moment, but she had talked this matter over with Alex before. “She’s making a great mistake, Alex.”
“I agree, but she’s very stubborn, isn’t she?”
“It’s beyond stubbornness, I think. All of us Stuarts are a little bit stubborn.”
The plane dipped suddenly, dropping several hundred feet as it hit an air pocket.
“Wow, that always catches my attention!” Alex gasped. “I always think we’re never going to come out of it!”
“So do I, but we did.”
Alex said, “I’ll never forget these last days. It’s changed my whole life, Wendy. I don’t know what I’ll do now, what changes will be in my life.”
“They’ll be good, whatever they are. You’re so different, Alex.”
Alex took her strong hand in his. Suddenly he brought it to his lips and kissed it and said, “I’d planned to wait until we got back to take you out in that old Cord of mine to some romantic spot.”
“Were you?”
“Yes, and you know what I was going to say?”
“What?”
“I was going to say, ‘Wendy Stuart, I love you and I want to marry you and live with you the rest of my life.’” He looked into her eyes. “When I say that, what will you say?”
Wendy swallowed hard. Impulsively she reached up, touched his cheek, and whispered, “I’ll say, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you and live with you the rest of my life!’”
Not caring who saw, Alex leaned forward and kissed Wendy lightly on the lips. It was a sign of love, a token of what was to come, and he heard a low whistle go up from the guitar player who sat across the aisle of the C54, but he did not care. Her lips were sweet under his, and he held the kiss for a moment, then turned and looked at the guitar player who was grinning broadly and returned the smile. Standing he declared, “I have an announcement to make!” When he had everybody’s attention he said proudly, “I have the honor to announce that Miss Wendy Stuart has agreed to be my wife.”
Wendy never forgot the exuberant congratulations that followed. Everyone stumbled to come to her. All of the women hugged her, and most of the men, too.
Finally, Mona came, and there was something odd in her expression. “I’m very happy for you, Wendy,” she said haltingly.
Wendy took the kiss that Mona put on her cheek, then said quietly, “Thank you, Mona. We love each other very much, and God’s leading us—so I know it’s right.”
Mona Stuart listened for a note of condemnation, but she heard none in Wendy’s voice. Nevertheless, her own heart smoldered, and she turned around and went back, her shoulders stiff and her back upright.
The plane flew on toward America, and as Wendy sat down beside Alex, and they talked of the future, her eyes kept going to Mona, who seemed to be oblivious to whatever it was that Rob Bradley was saying to her. Once again she prayed for her cousin; then she turned her face toward her fiancé and said, “Oh, Alex, we’re going to have such fun!”
“As they say in the movies,” Alex added, “we’re going to make beautiful music together!”
OVER THE EDGE
The target of Gilze-Rigen in Holland was not considered a tough target. The full-scale attack consisted of three squadrons, and they had fighter escort all the way.
As they began their bombing run, Adam Stuart broke his concentration long enough to look out and see the flak burst exploding around them. There was a strange beauty in the deadly black blossoms that seemed to appear magically in the space around the B-17s as they roared toward their target. When Adam had first encountered flak, he thought it was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen and had hated the very sight of it. Now, some transformation in his mind had made him able to ignore the deadly explosions. Off to his right, he saw a sudden cluster of the burst explode simultaneously in what looked like a fireworks display he had once seen over the skies in Los Angeles. True enough, those bursts had been red, yellow, green, and all the colors of the rainbow, and these were somber flowers in a funereal black. There was a morbid fascination as he considered them, knowing that out of any one of them one tiny shell fragment would be enough to kill him instantly if it hit the Last Chance at exactly the right angle and then passed through his skull or his heart.
Involuntarily, his hands tightened on the control yoke, and he put his eyes on the Forts in close formation around him.
“Bombardier to pilot!”
“Go ahead!”
“We’re on the bomb run!”
<
br /> As the Fortress continued straight as a ruler toward the target, a few fighters suddenly appeared, and instantly Adam said, “Pilot to crew, fighters at eleven o’clock high comin’ in! Shoot ’em down! Shoot ’em down!”
The airplane shook with the rattle of the twin fifties from the turrets, and as more Focke-Wulfs appeared, Adam saw one fighter whiz by him so close that the pilot’s bright red scarf could be plainly seen. Instantly, the thought passed through his mind, The Red Baron flies again! But he had no time to think more. The formation leader was shot down; then he saw two more Fortresses explode, hurtling toward the ground far below. Sixty seconds later he heard, “Bombs away, let’s go home!” from Moon Wilson. He kicked the plane into a sharp bank, and even as he did, a twenty-millimeter cannon shell ripped through the cockpit’s side window. It brushed him slightly on the back of the head and zoomed out through the other side without exploding.
Tex Smith had seen the glass shatter on both sides and the back of Adam’s helmet rip. He stared and gasped, “Stuart! Are you all right?”
But Smith had no time to say more, for at that exact instant a machine gun bullet from one of the fighters struck him in the temple. His eyes rolled upward; then he slumped in his seat.
“Tex! Are you all right?” Adam had not seen the bullet strike, but when the copilot’s body rolled over, he saw the black hole in the side of the helmet, and his heart seemed to stop.
Adam flew mechanically, gathering with the fragments of the formation, and as they went back toward England, all he could think of was how he had bawled Tex Smith out for a simple mistake before the mission had begun. Death, in all its finality, had struck, and now he was whispering, “If I could only tell him I didn’t really mean it!”
But there was no telling the copilot anything. Clint Stuart stepped through the door, took one look at the dead man, and without a word unstrapped him and moved him out of the cockpit. He asked no permission for this and stole one quick glance at the pilot. Adam’s face was stiff and pale, and though he handled the controls as adroitly as usual, there was a strange woodenness to his expression that Clint had not seen before.
“Are you all right, Sir?” he asked after he came back to stand behind the empty copilot seat.
“Yes, I’m all right.”
Clint was not happy with the clipped tone of Adam’s voice, but there was nothing he could do about it. Quietly he went about his duties, and after the plane landed and they went through interrogation, he saw that more than once the officer conducting the interrogation gave Adam a quizzical look, although he said nothing at the time. Afterward, however, he asked Clint to remain. The two had grown fairly well acquainted through many such meetings as this, and Captain Harrod said, “The lieutenant is shook up. Was he friends with Smith?”
“Not really, Sir.”
“I thought he might be. It happens that way sometimes.” Taking out a cigarette, he lit it with a Zippo lighter, then asked abruptly, “Have you got any comments to make about Lieutenant Stuart’s performance, Sergeant?”
Clint hesitated. A series of thoughts flashed through his mind. Actually, Adam had not been flying as well. Technically, it would be hard to fault him. Still, his attitude toward the crew had become more and more one of isolation, and now not a single member on the airplane would speak to Adam Stuart unless it was necessary as a part of operating the aircraft. Adam had also withdrawn himself from Clint. At first the two had spoken of family matters briefly from time to time, but lately there seemed to be a wall built up that Clint could not cross. Noting then that Captain Harrod was watching him closely, he said quickly, “He’s under a great deal of strain, Sir—but then we all are.”
“So you don’t find any fault with his flying? Don’t think I’m just making conversation, Sergeant Stuart. I know that the lieutenant’s your cousin, but I know, also, that this airplane has been a problem for a long time.” Harrod ran his fingers along his jaw thoughtfully and studied the tall flight engineer. “I think you’re the stabilizing influence on it. Things have gone much better since you came aboard.” He grinned then adding, “You’ve become kind of a mother hen to these poor lost sheep on board the Last Chance, haven’t you?”
“I try to do the best I can, of course, Captain. Actually, I think we’ve got a pretty good crew. Some of the men have problems, but they’re getting them under control.”
Harrod hesitated, then said, “Some of the men have been complaining that the lieutenant is cold as a block of ice. They don’t like that; they like to trust the man they’re flying with. It would be nice if they even liked him, although we can’t arrange that. What’s eating Lieutenant Stuart, Sergeant?”
“I really can’t say, Captain—and I would tell you anything I knew. He’s under more pressure, I think, than most of us. He’s the pilot and has to make most of the decisions.”
“That’s true in every ship,” Harrod consented, “but not all pilots turn to a block of ice. We try to spot trouble coming up. If he’s going to break down, I’d rather he not do it on a mission over Berlin.”
Clint hesitated, “I really can’t be of much help, I’m afraid. I do all I can to support our lieutenant. He’s a fine flyer.”
“No doubt about that, probably one of the best.” Harrod hesitated, started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. “Well, I’m going to have him go through some psychological tests. I’ll have to camouflage it by having some others take it, so maybe one of the shrinks can find out what’s eating at him. I hope so anyway. That’s all, Sergeant.”
Clint turned and went back to his quarters. He found everyone tense, and the conversation stopped as he entered, but Moon said, “I don’t care if you are his relative, Clint. I wish we had another pilot!”
Beans Cunningham was sitting on his bunk but looked up with a protest in his dark brown eyes. “I think the same way. I don’t know if we can go on strike, but I’d like to.”
“They’ll shoot you for that, you idiot!” Manny Columbo said. He had stripped out of his flight uniform and was bare chested, the sleek muscles writhing beneath his olive skin as he slipped on another shirt. “We’re stuck with him, and that’s all there is to it!”
Clint said quickly, “There are worse pilots, guys. He gets us there and back.”
“No question about his flying ability. We know he can do that, but does he have to be so hard-tailed about everything?” Asa Peabody was also dressing, putting on a clean uniform. The tow-headed hillbilly stared at Clint and said, “Well, it’s not your fault. Let’s go into town; we’ve all got leave!”
Clint did not really want to go. He had the impulse to stay, to try to find Adam and talk to him, but he thought, on the whole, it might be better if he let the matter rest for a while.
There was a scramble to get ready, for nobody in the outfit wanted to be left behind. As they piled into the trucks, Clint commented to Cisco Marischal, “I think they like to get us out of the camp after missions to kind of let off steam.”
“Yes, it’s the same way after a bullfight,” Cisco agreed. “No one wants to stay around after it’s over, thinking about it. You know you’re going to have to go back in the ring, and you don’t want to think about that either. So,” he said cheerfully, “bullfighters go out and get drunk, and I guess that’s what we’ll do tonight.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. As a matter of fact, it isn’t a good idea.”
“Maybe not for you. You’ve got God, but the rest of us don’t have anything like that.”
“You could have if you wanted to, Cisco.”
“Don’t start your preachin’ now, Clint. Wait until we get back. I’ll listen to you then. I’ll have too much of a headache to run away from you. Come on now; let’s go have a good time.”
London was an exciting place to be in 1943. It was packed with throngs of men far from home. They were all seeking pleasures of various kinds, trying to find some escape from the stifling military confinement. As the crew walked along the area call
ed the Strand and around Trafalgar Square, Clint stopped to look up at the two huge stone lions beside the statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson. Moon Wilson said, “According to legend, the lions roar whenever a virgin passes by here.” He grinned then and dug his elbow into Clint’s side. “I don’t think that happens very often, Clint.”
Clint floated along with the rest of the crew. He knew some of them would be unable to get back alone, and although he himself did not drink, he took it all in. Downtown London was crowded with men and women in every kind of uniform. From the open doorway, you could hear snatches of lusty songs from groups well along in their drinking. Although the nightly blackout was strictly enforced, there was always the flare of a cigarette lighter so some soldier could get a look at a woman standing in a darkened doorway. Clint was aware of the lingering odor of cheap perfume used to camouflage the need for a bath. Soap and warm water were rare luxuries in this country at this time.
By 10 P.M., the bars were crowded, the noise was deafening, and the brawls were beginning to break out. The singing went on until the singers grew tired, and finally Clint succeeded in rounding up most of the crew, except for Moon, who seemed to have disappeared completely. Clint was shepherding the rest along, some of them protesting in a drunken mumble but obeying docilely enough.
As he passed through the crowded pub where he had picked up Cunningham and the new radio operator, he happened to glance over at a table that was wedged into an angle. The room was dark, but he recognized Adam Stuart instantly. Adam was staring at him, and Clint knew at once that he was drunk. His shirt was pulled open, his tie awry, and his light hair was down over his forehead. He did not move for a moment, and then deliberately he turned away, avoiding Clint’s gaze.
All the way back to camp, the survivors of the night’s revelry were singing raucously off key, until they finally passed out. Clint was worried about Adam. I know he’s been drinking some. He’s the worst kind, a solitary drinker, he thought as the truck joggled and bounced over the rough, broken road that led back to the airstrip. Maybe I should have tried to get him to leave, but I had to get these guys back. A sense of helplessness swept over him, and he finally put all his efforts into getting the crew bedded down. Afterwards, he stepped outside and looked up at the sky, wondering if he should go back to London and try to find Adam. Still, he knew that was impossible. He slowly turned, went back, took off his clothes, and stretched out on his bunk. I’ll have to try to talk with him tomorrow. Maybe he’ll listen, he thought, just before going to sleep.
Winds of Change Page 25
