by Tom Young
Karl reached for his pole. Whacked the fish on the head to kill it and end its flopping. He fished for survival now and could not afford the mercy he’d shown the rainbow in the Wiconisco Creek.
The sailor took hold of the raft and dragged it into the rushes along the shore. He concealed it as best he could among the weeds, but as he stood looking down at the raft with his hands on his hips, he appeared worried.
“May I use your knife?” the German asked.
“What for?”
“To dismantle the raft, at least partly.”
“Why not just let it float on downstream?” Karl asked.
“Because we do not know where it will drift ashore and who will see it.”
Karl passed the knife to the U-boat man. The sailor cut some of the lashings that held the raft together and kicked the logs apart. He shoved a few of the logs back into the water. The German collected as much of the rope and parachute cord as he could salvage, grabbed Karl’s knapsack from among the raft’s wreckage, and took the water flasks from the knapsack. He filled the containers with river water and joined Karl on the bank.
“A good day’s work,” Karl whispered. “We got across the river and we got something to eat.”
The Kraut made no reply. Karl lifted the pike into the knapsack. Swung the knapsack onto his shoulder and raised his fishing pole, ready to use it in its former role as a walking stick.
“I hear another vehicle,” the German said.
A second later, Karl heard it, too: the clattering and wheezing of an old engine. A good reason to get away from the river as quickly as possible.
“Let’s move,” Karl said.
A field of waist-high weeds lay next to the water. Karl led the way into the field, and when the hooded lights of a truck bounced into view, he motioned for the U-boat man to get low. Both men crouched among the weeds. Karl could smell the pike in his knapsack; he imagined its slime getting all over his gear.
The truck rolled along the river road, fifty yards from the water. Though Karl could not see it well in the night, the vehicle appeared to be another farm truck. The truck never slowed; its driver appeared to notice nothing out of the ordinary. After it passed, Karl and the sailor rose and made their way into the trees on the far side of the field.
“That was pretty close,” Karl whispered.
“If the truck had come while I was beaching the raft, we would have been seen.”
The Kraut reached for his flashlight, clicked it on, and shaded it with his hand. He began leading the way deeper into the woods. The men did not need to discuss the urgency of putting distance between themselves and the river road. After the sun came up, someone would likely notice their tracks on the riverbank or the path they’d torn through the cornfield. Worse, villagers might notice both and make a connection.
The fugitives hiked for two hours. In thicker sections of the woods, the moon and stars offered little illumination. After a low-hanging branch caught Karl full in the face, he began using his walking stick as a guard, holding it in front of him to locate obstacles the way a blind man might use a cane. Once again, his thoughts turned to his crew. Where were they tonight? In a POW camp? Dead? Or on the run in some other forest?
If I had turned back, Karl thought, we’d be in our beds at Rougham. Maybe anticipating a short milk run to complete our tour. Then home.
Stop it, he told himself. Stop it, stop it, stop it.
Karl found his mind like an airplane that wouldn’t stay trimmed; it kept wanting to veer off in the wrong direction. To fight that tendency, he resolved not to think back on anything, and to think ahead no further than necessary. To anticipate what might happen tomorrow brought little except dread. So he would look ahead only to the next couple of hours.
We’ll stop and dig another fire hole, Karl decided. I’ll fillet the pike as best I can with my folding knife, and we’ll sharpen sticks to hold chunks of fish over the fire. After we eat, we’ll use the fire to dry these wet clothes.
One task at a time.
Don’t think of trigger-happy villagers, he ordered himself. Don’t think of the innocent farmer who might catch you, and don’t think about the calculus of who deserves to live. Don’t think of SS interrogators and firing squads. Or of Adrian with a hole blown through his chest. Or of Conrad, Pell, or Russo and whether their parachutes opened at all. Don’t think of the impossible distance to cover before reaching friendly forces—or of the danger of approaching those forces in the unlikely event you get that far.
Think of rainbow trout rising to take dry flies, Karl mused. Or think of something useful, like how you need to sharpen your knife again before you fillet the fish. Or how you’ll need to slice off the skin because that will go faster than trying to scale a fish with a pocketknife.
One task at a time, Karl thought. One task at a time.
24
Executioners
In the glow of the fire pit, Wilhelm held his second piece of fish over the flames. The American sat across from him, uncharacteristically silent, eating slowly and staring into the fire. On the ground nearby rested the bones of the filleted pike, with the head and tail still attached. The exposed skeleton put Wilhelm in mind of the bleaching timbers of a long-grounded schooner.
Another bomber formation droned overhead. Wilhelm braced himself for the thuds and flashes, but none came. Presumably, the aircraft headed for a target so deep in the Reich that its destruction would take place out of earshot. They appeared to fly unopposed, at least for this portion of their route; Wilhelm heard no antiaircraft fire.
Yes, he realized, this war is well and truly lost.
“There go your friends,” Wilhelm said, glancing up at the heavens.
The American finished a bite of fish, licked his fingers, wiped his hands on his trousers.
“Yeah,” the Yank said, looking aloft. “But my closest friends were shot down with me. I sure hope they’re safe on the ground somewhere. I know my copilot’s dead, but I want to think the others made it.”
“Many of my classmates are at the bottom of the Atlantic,” Wilhelm said. “You and I, all our comrades, have been so busy fighting, we have had no time to grieve.”
“I guess not.”
Wilhelm kept his next thought to himself: And you and I will likely never get time to grieve.
The next hour passed in silence, and the two dried their clothing by the fire. With no sounds of dogs or other pursuers, the two men judged it safe to try to sleep—but they got little rest. A breeze came in on a cold front that dropped the temperature nearly to freezing. For warmth, they lay close together with their backs to each other. Wilhelm slept only in snatches, and he suspected the Yank fared no better. Wilhelm did not voice his next thought: If we do not reach the Allies before winter sets in, we will either freeze to death or surrender. We do not have the gear to survive out of doors in deep cold.
The first light of dawn revealed high overcast the color of steel. The fugitives had camped in a grove of pin oaks, with a carpet of ferns across the forest floor. Autumn had turned the ferns from green to yellow. Wilhelm and the American kicked dirt into their fire pit, and discussed a plan for the day. They decided once again to travel for as far as the woods would conceal them, then assess the terrain where the trees ended.
They hiked slowly and kept their footfalls as quiet as possible. Every few hundred meters, they stopped to look and listen. At one point, Wilhelm thought he saw a rifle barrel aiming from behind a tree, but it turned out to be only a dead branch, fallen from canopy above and resting at an odd angle.
You’re seeing things, he told himself. Either through paranoia, lack of sleep, or morning mist.
Wilhelm thought of the optical illusions that haunted superstitious sailors. He’d learned in the naval college about the fata morgana, a kind of mirage that can appear just above the horizon, especially during a temperature inversion. Named for Morgan le Fay, the sorceress of Arthurian legend, a fata morgana resulted from light rays bent so crazily they
could make a ship appear to float above the ocean. Such mirages probably explained the wild tales of the ghost ship Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas forever.
Good thing ghost ships do not really exist, Wilhelm thought. If they did, spectral submarines and their targets would eternally crowd the Atlantic.
At midmorning, the men came to the edge of the forest. The view beyond revealed not picturesque farmland, but a rail-marshaling yard. Watching from a distance of more than a kilometer, Wilhelm’s heart sank. He and the Yank would have to circle through the woods for a long distance to get around the bustling rail yard. Dozens of workers busied themselves coupling and decoupling locomotives. Guards stalked the property, Mausers held crosswise across their chests. Smoke rose from an office chimney.
“That ain’t good,” the Yank muttered in English.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Guess we’ll just have to wait till dark and go around.”
Wilhelm and the aviator remained hidden in the trees, watching the rail yard. A locomotive chugged out of the yard, pulling a dozen empty boxcars, and Wilhelm wondered what their purpose might be. Another engine, without cars, screeched and groaned into position, and rail workers connected a flatbed car that carried an antiaircraft gun. Soldiers swarmed across the flatbed, loading it with shells for the flak cannon.
“Hell of a way to ride shotgun,” the Yank said, again in English.
“How’s that?”
“The gun isn’t there to be transported; it’s there to protect the train.”
“I see.”
Hunger pangs began to torment Wilhelm again. He’d eaten his fill of fish last night, but neither man had eaten since. Sitting at the base of a tree, he plucked dry blades of grass, twisted them into little balls, and popped them into his mouth. He found the taste and texture not so bad when he thought of the grass as salad without dressing.
The Yank toyed with a small stone. Flicked it in the direction of the rail yard.
“I knew a guy who rode the rails all over the country back during the Depression,” the flier said. “Said it was a heck of an adventure, but he wouldn’t want to do it again.”
“Why would he do such a thing?”
“Looking for work, mainly. Lots of guys did it. They called them ‘hobos.’ ”
“They were looking for work, but they could afford a ticket?”
The Yank laughed. “No, they weren’t buying tickets. They were hopping freight cars. Illegal and dangerous as hell. You could fall off a train and lose an arm or a leg, or get cut in half.”
“The times got difficult here, too,” Wilhelm said, “but I never heard of anyone doing anything like that.”
“Yeah, it was crazy. Railroad bulls would catch them and beat them up, but they’d come right back. You couldn’t find a job anywhere. But everybody’s got a job these days.”
“When I was little, I thought all Americans were rich gangsters like Al Capone. Where is your railroad-riding friend now?”
“Working at a shipyard in Mobile, Alabama.”
“I might have known. You Americans keep sending so many ships.”
For the next hour, the rail workers connected cars behind the flatbed that carried the flak gun. Two cars contained loose coal. Four held rolling stock: various military trucks and utility vehicles. Behind the rolling stock came two tanker cars, presumably carrying gasoline or diesel fuel.
“Where do you suppose that stuff is going?” the Yank asked.
“No idea,” Wilhelm said. “I never concerned myself with army matters.”
“I’m sure the navy had you busy enough.” The American spoke those words with a bit of an edge, but Wilhelm let it pass.
The overcast began to break up, revealing patches of blue overhead.
As if cued by the sky’s opening, the buzz of radial engines sounded from above. Wilhelm counted four, then six aircraft. No, eight of them. Single-engine fighters arranged into two elements of four, they plummeted through a break in the clouds. Dived toward the earth at a steep angle. The fuselages looked thick and bulbous—not sleek like Messerschmitts.
“Scheisse,” Wilhelm said.
“Ain’t gonna be pretty,” the Yank remarked in English.
A siren began to wail in the marshaling yard. Men ran for bunkers. Three soldiers leaped aboard the flatbed and manned the flak cannon—a twenty-millimeter Flakvierling 38. They spun wheels, yanked levers, raised the four barrels of their weapon.
“I do not know those planes,” Wilhelm said.
“P-47 Thunderbolts.”
The flak gun began pounding so loudly, Wilhelm felt reverberations in his rib cage. Smoke spat from the muzzles, and the flatbed rocked with the weapon’s recoil.
The antiaircraft fire passed harmlessly over the attacking Thunderbolts. In their haste, the gunners had elevated the barrels too far.
The lead Thunderbolt leveled at treetop height. Scythed across the ground toward the rail yard. Three others followed close behind, while the other fighters circled higher.
When the P-47s opened fire, bright motes of light spat from their guns. Rounds streaked from the wings and danced into the rail cars. The strafing sent up showers of dust and debris. Some of the rounds struck the flak gun and the car that carried it. The tracers rended metal, wood, and flesh. Wilhelm saw two gunners dismembered in a reddish mist. One of the trucks chained down on a rail car began to burn.
Another antiaircraft gun started booming. Wilhelm had not noticed the second flak cannon. It fired from a position on the ground at the far side of the rail yard. Its shots, too, missed their mark.
The first four aircraft pulled up and banked left just in time to clear the target for their mates. The second element of attackers swooped toward the men and machines on the ground.
All of Wilhelm’s instincts screamed, Alaaarm! Dive, dive, dive into the soil! Sink below the surface and maneuver before this hellfire immolates you.
But, of course, that was impossible. This stationary target lay at the mercy of the aircraft, and the P-47s had no mercy to give. Wilhelm could scarcely imagine the terror of the men in the rail yard. He had faced similar attacks in the U-351, but he’d always had a means of escape: A good U-boat crew could crash dive in as little as thirty seconds. At the first cry of “Alarm,” everyone ran for their diving stations. Sailors slammed shut the hatches and vents. The crew flooded the forward ballast tanks, and to speed the process, anyone not otherwise engaged scrambled forward to help lower the bow. An attacking aircraft might find nothing to strafe but a foamy swirl.
But to Wilhelm, the aircraft hitting the rail yard seemed more like executioners than attackers. With at least one of the antiaircraft guns out of action, the planes could work their will. No defensive fire came up at the next four Thunderbolts.
Two of the P-47s opened up with their guns, but for a moment, the other two did not fire. Wilhelm wondered if their weapons had jammed. Then they loosed a salvo of rockets.
Wilhelm had never seen this particular brand of destruction. In the U-boat, he had faced aerial bombs and strafing by bullets and cannon fire, but never rockets. These flaming darts cut bright vectors of light. Several speared the tanker cars.
In quick succession, the two tanker cars exploded. A flaming mass engulfed half the rail yard. A hot shock wave slammed Wilhelm’s face as if he’d jerked open an oven door. Smoke swelled and towered, and from behind the smoke, the four winged executioners pulled up and climbed skyward.
Fire seethed throughout the rail yard. Screams melded with the crackle of flames. Wilhelm had seen tanker ships loaded with fuel oil burning on the seas—but not with this kind of fury. The tanker cars must have carried gasoline. Maybe high-octane aviation fuel for the Luftwaffe.
Wilhelm looked over at the American, who watched without expression. No doubt this aviator had orchestrated similar hell from his Flying Fortress, but he would not have witnessed the results up close. In the Yank’s unblinking eyes, Wilhelm saw flames reflected.
&nb
sp; Yes, Wilhelm thought, now you see what your bombs have done.
Somewhere amid the conflagration, a secondary explosion cooked off. Twisted chunks of metal arced upward, spinning and smoking, and fell back to a burning earth.
The first four P-47s banked in the distance, leveled their wings, and came on fast for another strafing run. They disappeared behind the pall of smoke just as they began firing; Wilhelm could not determine their targets. Perhaps they fired at previously untouched rail cars on the other side of the flames. Wilhelm had no way of knowing, and it did not matter. The rail yard was already thoroughly destroyed.
The P-47s pulled up, and all eight joined into formation and climbed. The aircraft vanished into cloud cover now dirtied by rising smoke.
Wilhelm wanted to sprint into the burning rail yard, help fight the fire, pull men from wreckage. But he knew that was impossible. He was out of the war and on the run, and he could do nothing but run until the war was over.
A series of loud pops sounded within the fire, followed by another secondary explosion and a shower of flame. Perhaps some of the rail cars contained ammunition. Whatever the reason, the fire raged larger and hotter.
“We should move,” the Yank said. “Everybody will be fighting the fire, watching the fire, or looking up at the smoke.”
“And not concerned with two vagabonds.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. And maybe we can scrounge some more food.”
How can the American think of food at a moment like this? But then Wilhelm realized he was hungry, too. Survival instincts would not be denied.
He stood up, stiff in all his joints. He and the Yank backed farther into the shadows of the forest. From somewhere out of sight, the sirens of fire engines blared.
After one final look at the devastated rail yard, Wilhelm turned and entered the forest. He wondered about the men who had just been burned or shot to death. How many? Some may have been diehards like that Nazi butcher back in the village, but others were just rail workers doing a job.
And I can do nothing, Wilhelm thought, except use their misfortune as cover for movement.
