They all had heavy lines scarred in their faces and their foreheads, as though they had been sitting for twenty years inside the hut. I touched my own cheeks, the corners of my mouth, certain that I would feel those same creases and wrinkles. It seemed that my world had gone into a tailspin, and I was more afraid than ever.
The CO ended the briefing with a little talk. “This is the last op for our Hallibags,” he said, his crooked teeth showing in a grin. “The next time we fly, we’ll be doing it in Lancs.”
So that was it. His bit of news fell like a wet blanket on the benches full of fliers. He didn’t get a smile, let alone the cheers he was probably expecting. He tapped his stick on his toe.
For me it was worse than the flak ships and the full moon, even worse than the low-level bombing. Though I’d known it was coming, and every day I’d expected it, his news made me gasp.
Tap-tap went the stick. Tap-tap. “Any questions, gentlemen?”
I put up my hand. I was the only one who did.
The swagger stick pointed at me. “Yes?” said Fletcher-Dodge. He didn’t seem to remember me either from Buster or from the loft.
“What will happen to the pigeons, sir?” I asked.
Everybody laughed. It was as though I had touched a pressure valve, releasing it all in a rush and a roar. With the flak and the full moon, and the miles of sea to cross, the birds seemed a silly thing to worry about.
The briefing ended then. Fletcher-Dodge wished us luck, and the airmen rose from the benches. We all stood at attention as the officers filed from the stage. Then I ran for the door.
Lofty shouted after me, “Kid! Hey, Kak.” But I kept going, through the crowd and outside, beyond the huts, along the grass, down to the pigeon loft.
From a hundred yards away I heard the birds squawking. I heard their wings beating at the bars, and I thought of the pigeoneer who had slaughtered his flock to keep them from the enemy. I sprinted the rest of the way. I bashed through the door and into the loft.
Bert was there, in the midst of a swarm of pigeons. He was just beginning to sort out the ones that were “on” for the night. He had his bucket of suet waiting, and the birds circled round him.
“’Allo, sir,” he said, shouting over the noise.
I couldn’t see Percy anywhere in the mass of flapping wings. But Bert saw me looking and raised an arm that was covered with pigeons; six of them clung to his sleeve. He pointed to the top of the roosts, and I saw Percy up there, sitting patiently on the highest perch.
“Percy’s too smart to mix ’imself up in the melee, sir,” shouted Bert. “Oh, ’e always gets ’is turn.”
I held up my finger and whistled, and Percy came whirring over to perch on my knuckle, his feathers all happily ruffled. He tipped his head to peer at my tunic, trying to figure out what I had brought him and where I had put it. His head moved forward and back, left and then right. He blinked and cooed, then gazed at me with his starry halo.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Gee, I didn’t have time.”
He took another look, peering at each of my pockets. Then he blinked at me, his little brow all puzzled.
“Oh, Percy, I’m sorry,” I said.
He flew away and left me. He joined the crowd of pigeons fighting for the suet. I sat down on the feed bags, moaning to myself. “It’s the end for them,” I said.
“What do you mean, sir?” asked Bert.
“This is the last op for the Halifaxes.”
“Oh, Crikey.” Bert raised his head and swore. The birds whirled away from him, rising from his arms and shoulders. He came toward me through a storm of feathers, sad and slumped, a bowed-down giant. “Are you sure, sir? Did they tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“Did they tell you what will ’appen?”
I shook my head.
He sat down beside me, the little suet tin looking sad and tiny in his hands. “So that’s it, is it?” he said. “It’s all over after tonight.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
I started to shake, more from fear than anything. I rocked forward until my head was nearly on my knees. Bert’s arm pressed across my shoulder, his hand tightening on my arm.
“I thought you knew,” I said. “I came down here, and I heard the pigeons flying, and I thought you were getting ready to destroy them.”
“Never,” he said. “I’d never allow it, sir.”
“But . . .”
“It will all work out in the end. I don’t know ’ow, sir, but it will.”
I leaned against him, and he pressed me even closer. The birds came hopping on the floor, turning back and stopping, advancing warily toward the suet tin.
“Going to ’Appy Valley tonight, sir?” asked Bert.
“No,” I said. “Peenemünde.”
“I don’t know it, sir.”
“On the Baltic. On the way to Berlin.”
“Oh. Double rations, then.” He collected the tin and stood up. “It’s a long ’aul, sir, for the poor little bleeders.”
I started to speak, but he stopped me with a look. “Tonight’s just another op, sir,” he said. “No point in upsetting the birds, is there? We’ll worry tomorrow about tomorrow.”
He doled the suet out. Though he was doing it for the last time, he did it no differently, making sure that every pigeon got a proper share. I fed the others, the ones that weren’t flying that night. They came pecking round my feet as I tossed down handfuls of seed.
We fixed message cylinders to the birds that were on. I clipped them in place as Bert held the pigeons, and it surprised me to see how the birds struggled. “They’re uneasy,” said Bert. “Not to worry, sir, but it might be a difficult op.”
I didn’t believe that birds could see the future. I thought they were scared because I was scared, that they sensed the fear that was growing inside me. When I saw how they fought at the doors of their boxes, I decided not to put Percy inside one.
I carried him from the loft on my shoulder, with his empty box in my hand. Through the rest of the afternoon I kept him right with me. I even ate my eggs and bacon with Percy tucked inside my jacket.
It was still daylight when Lofty drove us out in the Morris. We sprawled on the grass below B for Buster, and Buzz went looking for his clover.
Ratty tugged on the string at his neck and pulled out his rabbit’s foot. Whole patches of its fur had been worn away by rubbing on his chest. He tapped it on his lips, then slipped it back into his flying suit. The others all saw him and, like people yawning after one person yawns, touched at their clothes for their own little charms. I put the empty box on the ground and let Percy hop around beside it.
We lay there too long. We should have climbed into the kite right away, before our thoughts could work around to the target and all the terrible things that the sun held at bay. Ratty was smoking cigarettes as though he would have no tomorrow to do it. There was one in his mouth, and a butt smoldering in the grass, and already he was fishing another from his packet. Buzz was still searching for his clover, and Will kept asking, almost to himself, “What the hell’s at Peenemünde?”
An hour passed. Then we saw a little figure wandering toward us, a man in air force blue, dwarfed below the bombers. He came around the tail of D for Dog, through A for Angel’s shadow. His hands in his pockets, his head down, he crossed the grass toward us. The sun shone on his white hair.
“Wheezy jeezy, it’s the padre,” Ratty said.
“Come to do the last rites, I guess,” said Will.
“No lie.”
It was unnerving to see him coming. He had never walked out around the bombers before. Even Buzz stopped his search and watched that figure growing larger.
The padre stopped and stood above us, his back to the sun, his face a shadow below his cap. “Evening, boys,” he said. “I wanted to wish you Godspeed and good luck.”
He got mutters of thanks, a grunt from Ratty.
“I wish I was going with you, boys,” the padre sai
d, just like Fletcher-Dodge. “I really do. But there’s no room for passengers on a Hallibag.”
It bothered me that he said that, taking a word meant only for fliers. Ratty must have felt the same. He cocked himself up on an elbow and told the padre, “You can take my place if you like, sir. Lots of room for gunners.”
The padre forced a thin little smile. “Anything I can do for you, boys?”
“You could help me look for a clover,” said Buzz. “Bet you could find one easily.”
The padre must have wondered if his leg was being pulled. Then Ratty said, “It’s true; he needs it, sir. He never flies without one.”
“No, he doesn’t need a clover,” said the padre, smiling. “God will be with you all.”
Will looked up. “Do you really think so, sir?”
“I beg your pardon?” said the padre.
“Do you really think God goes flying in bombers?” asked Will.
The padre was standing directly in the sun; I couldn’t look at him without squinting, and I couldn’t see the expression on his face. He reminded me somehow of the pigeons that got millet while the others ate suet, and I felt the same pity for him, and the same envy, too. Jolly or not, his well-meaning visit had turned to a trial. He said in his calm way, “Wherever you go, He is with you.”
“Then why do so many of us die?” asked Will. He sounded sincere, almost sad, as though the question had tortured him through many nights and days. “If God is with us, why do we die?”
“Knock it off!” shouted Buzz. He threw a little pebble at the bomb aimer. “I don’t want to talk about this. It’s wrong; it’s bad luck.”
Then Ratty surprised me by siding with Buzz. “No lie,” he told Will. “Shut up, okay?” And he turned toward the padre and said, “Oh, Father. Bless us.”
“No!” Will was pushing himself up. “Tell me! ” he shouted. “Why do we die?”
Beams of sunlight seemed to burst from the padre’s hair, from his collars and his boots. He put a hand up, as though to bless us, and the shadow of it fell across Will. “You go in the name of God. You go with His blessing,” he said.
But the bomb aimer got up on his knees. I didn’t know if he meant to stand up or only to kneel there. But the padre stepped forward and put his hand on Will’s shoulder. And Will didn’t push it away; he held on to it, and asked again, “Why?” Then his back bent in an arch, his shoulders sagging. His head bowed toward the earth. “You don’t know,” he said quietly. “Do you? You just don’t know.”
His hand stayed clutched to the padre’s wrist, on the stretch of white skin below a gold-braided cuff. In that moment it looked as though they were locked in a struggle. The padre, stiff-armed, might have been pressing Will into the ground. “Are you frightened?” he asked.
Will shook his head. “That isn’t it.”
“God bless you, son,” said the padre. He pulled his hand up, and Will’s arm rose with it—as high as he could reach—before it dropped to the grass. The padre backed away a step or two, then turned around and walked off toward the next kite.
“Father!” shouted Buzz. “Help me look.”
“I can’t,” the padre said. “I don’t have time.” Already the first bombers were starting their engines. Puffs of white smoke were swirling up from the tangle of wings and tail fins. The air was shaking with the rumble of airscrews.
Ratty started searching for a clover, then Simon, then I. Will didn’t move from his bit of grass; he didn’t even rise from his knees. He held his helmet upside down, and stared at the picture inside.
Then Lofty and the old guy came around Buster’s tail. Pop stood by the door. Lofty called to us: “Right, chaps. Let’s go.”
“My clover!” said Buzz.
Lofty got down and looked—the old guy, too—and Sergeant Piper watched us crawl across the grass as though we’d lost our minds. Far to the west, toward the sun, the first kite taxied to the runway. Another came into line behind it.
“I’ve got to find one,” said Buzz. “Aw, Geez, I can’t go without a clover.”
“All aboard!” shouted Sergeant Piper.
Lofty walked over to Buzz and tried to haul him to his feet. Pop had already given up, and then Simon did, too. “Don’t worry,” he told Buzz. “She’ll be apples tonight.” He shrugged at Lofty, and the two of them wandered over to the kite. They stood at the door, and Lofty said, “Buzz, we have to go.” Will shuffled over to stand with them there. I carried the pigeon box, and Percy on my shoulder, past Buzz and Ratty as they still ferreted back and forth.
The bombers passed in their thundering parade. “Buzz,” said Lofty again. “We can’t wait anymore.”
“Another minute,” said Buzz. “I gotta find one.”
Ratty put his hand on Buzz’s back. “Come on,” he said. “You can take my rabbit’s foot. Okay?”
Buzz shook his head. “It won’t help me.” He kept searching, frantic now.
Will climbed up through the door. Simon went behind him, then Lofty—ducking his head as he clambered through. Ratty was pulling at Buzz’s collar, trying to get him up from the grass. Our engines started, one by one.
Buzz was nearly in tears when he gave up his search. He came running to the door, clumsy in his big boots. “Oh, Geez,” he said. “I’m scared.”
CHAPTER 23
WE THUNDERED OVER WHITBY and on across the sea, and the water was all aflame. High above it, with the sun behind us, we flew in a great battle fleet of Lancs and Hallibags. We could see them strewn for miles around us, on a sky of lurid colors.
I wished that Will had described it all with his poetry. He would have found just the right words to tell us how the sky looked as it changed from twilight to darkness, how the huge full moon came sailing up. But he was silent all the way; he never said a word.
I let Percy sit on my shoulder as we climbed toward the darkness. Our route took us over an airy mountain with a summit of eighteen thousand feet, so I thought he would feel a bit groggy as we crossed over Denmark. But for now he was happy to look out the window, and I felt his head turning from side to side as I listened on the wireless for a recall, for changes to the route and weather.
Silver moonlight flashed across the water. The engines throbbed as we climbed steadily to the east. Far in the distance I saw flickers of gunfire, little bursts of red tracer. I held on to Percy until we topped ten thousand feet, then tucked him inside my jacket.
A few minutes from the coast, Lofty told me to start throwing out the Window. I took Percy aft and plugged myself in by the flare chute. Someone sighted searchlights on our left; then Will broke his silence to say there were others to the south.
“Yes, I see them,” answered Lofty.
I couldn’t see anything where I was. But Will painted it all with his words, the way the beams of light were swinging and crossing. I was glad to hear him, until I realized that what he was really describing was a Halifax being coned in the lights. He talked on in a flat and dreadful voice, as another beam—and another—fixed themselves on the straggling bomber. Then he told us how the flak was bursting close around it, how the Halifax seemed pinned in place against the sky. Suddenly he stopped, and it was just his breathing that I heard.
“Poor buggers,” said Lofty. His pipe started ticking.
We crossed narrow Denmark, and Will looked down at prickles of light. “They’re sort of twinkling,” said Will. “Sort of bursting. Here and there. All over.” The whole country was ruled by the Nazis, but on the farms and in the villages blacked-out windows were being uncurtained, doors and shutters opened as the bombers flew overhead. From the middle of an empty field came flashes of a torch aimed toward us—three dots and a dash, three dots and a dash—V in Morse code, the symbol for victory. All across the dark land lights flickered on as we droned across it, our friends on the ground cheering us in secret. It was a brave thing, and a sad thing, and I wished that I could see it.
“Skipper. Turn coming up,” said Simon. “Steer one-five-four. Now.”
“Roger,” said Lofty, the kite already rolling to the right.
We started down toward Peenemünde.
There was no use for Window anymore; the Germans knew we were coming. I moved up toward the wireless, passing through the front office. With our turrets whining, our engines in a pleasant roar, we flew along below the moon and above the sea, in a brightness that was neither night nor day.
“A hunter’s moon,” said Will.
I held on to Percy as I stepped down and buckled in at my place. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “There’s six hundred kites. They won’t get us.”
The night fighters came into the stream before we reached the target. Sparks of gunfire shot from kite to kite. Then the searchlights wheeled toward us, and the flak opened up from the ships down below. It grew heavier and heavier, and we had never seen flak as bad as that.
“We’re going to get the chop,” said Buzz.
“Shut up,” said Lofty.
“It’s true,” he said. “I know it.”
I closed up my window. I didn’t want Percy to see the beams of light, the tracers and the gunfire, the flames and the bomb bursts. I squeezed him against me as the crate was hurled up and then down. I put my hand into my jacket and rubbed his feathers. I felt his heart shuddering inside his little breast.
Our number three packed it in just as we dropped our bombs. The one that had quit before, the one that Lofty had fretted about, sputtered and stopped. Lofty shouted at Pop to close off the fuel. Then the flak hit us. It ripped through our metal skin in a hundred places. It knocked out the number one engine, puncturing the fuel tanks. It jammed the rear turret and set the wing on fire, and down we went in a howling dive. I lurched against my harnesses, then smashed against the fuselage. Everyone was screaming. Buzz, in a high voice, was shouting for his mother.
The airframe shook all over. Buster went into a spin that hurled me sideways and pinned me back in my seat.
“Pull up!” yelled Lofty. “Come on!”
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