“Again, Lieutenant, you don’t understand the equipment we’re working with.”
“Maybe not, sir, but an airplane’s an airplane. And I sure as hell know how to fly one. Let me ask you this—have you ever even tried a steep dive?”
The blank look on Staunton’s face provided all the answer he needed.
“Here’s a proposition for you,” Tommy continued. “Why don’t we use those little drones you brought along—the PQ-14s—and give a steep dive to target a try? You say the explosives aren’t going to even show up until 12 October—that’s three days from now—and I’m betting it’s going to take a while to get them installed in the baby, right?”
“Yes, approximately twenty-four hours to install the Torpex and ensure the triggering system is working correctly.”
“Great,” Tommy said. “So once it stops raining tomorrow, we’ve got at least three days to play with. Plenty of time for a little target practice.”
Dandridge didn’t have to say a word; it was obvious from the look on his face he liked the idea. Staunton was deep in thought and harder to read. But at least he hadn’t said no.
Lieutenant Wheatley took the opportunity the silence provided to ask a question of his own: “We will have escort fighter coverage, right? We’re not going to be tooling around over the Kraut lines on our own, are we?”
“That’s Ninth Air Defense Command’s job,” Tommy replied. “They fly a couple of squadrons of jugs and one with P-38s.”
Wheatley’s brow furrowed. “They any good?”
“Never seen them in action.”
Wheatley rolled his eyes and mumbled, “Oh, brother.”
It was midafternoon when the briefing finally ended. Before Tommy could leave the tent for the jeep ride back to his quarters across A-90, Sergeant Dandridge pulled him aside.
“Lieutenant,” Dandridge said, “you’d better take it easy with Major Staunton. He’s got horsepower way above that gold leaf he wears on his collar. The brass at Eighth Air Force Headquarters consider him some kind of indispensable genius. They give him anything he wants. You try to shit on him, and they might just shit on you. If you get my meaning, sir.”
Tommy smiled and gave Dandridge a friendly pat on the shoulder. “What’s he going to do to me, Sergeant? Get me sent into combat?”
“Gee, no, sir…that’s not…that’s not what I meant…not at—”
“Look, Sergeant, I attack ground targets for a living, and I do it nearly every damn day, weather permitting. There’s not a whole lot your major can do to make my life worse.”
“I understand that, sir. And I respect it. I really do. But he can make my life a whole lot worse.”
“Well then, Sergeant, let’s see if you and I can make sure that doesn’t happen, okay?”
“I’d like that, sir,” Dandridge replied. “Sounds like a plan.”
“It’s going to be great working with you, Sergeant.”
“Same here, sir.”
Back at 301st Fighter Squadron’s operations shack, Tommy went looking for Colonel Pruitt. “He’s out on the ramp with Sergeant McNulty, getting his ass wet,” the operations sergeant told him. “He’s fixing to take your section while you’re on special duty, Lieutenant.”
Tommy found the two just where the ops sergeant said they’d be: doing a walk-around of Eclipse of the Hun II.
McNulty threw open his arms and said, “Well, well, well…if it ain’t the indisposable Lieutenant Moon, coming back to visit us mere mortals.”
Tommy replied, “I hope you meant indispensable, Sergeant.”
“Ain’t that what I said?”
Pruitt added, “I wasn’t expecting to see much of you, Lieutenant. What’re you doing back over here?”
“Got to pick up my kit, sir…and I’ve got a little request.”
“Shoot.”
“I’d like to take some leave tonight and try to run down my brother. I think his unit may not be too far from here.”
“That’s fine by me,” Pruitt replied, “but can the cloak and dagger boys across the field live without you?”
“They’ve seen enough of me for today, sir. Won’t be needing me again until we can fly. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, hopefully.”
“Well, then, stop wasting time yakking with us and go find your brother, Lieutenant. I promise to take good care of your ship in the meantime.”
As Tommy walked back to Operations, Pruitt called after him. “Lieutenant Moon, take someone with you to ride shotgun, close as you’ll be to the Krauts and all.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lieutenant Jimmy Tuttle was getting nervous. It was pitch-dark, and the rain was still falling, silvery-white pellets coursing through the narrow beams of the jeep’s blackout headlight. The windshield wipers could barely keep up with it; he and Tommy Moon could only read the road signs by stopping right next to them. Worse, the canvas roof above him was starting to leak. He’d put on his steel pot to keep his head dry.
“You really think we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of finding your brother’s outfit, Half?”
“Relax, Jimmy. That last sign said we’re only two miles from Fifth Infantry Division HQ. Thirty-Seventh Tank’s got to be around there somewhere.”
“All I can say is the next bunch of guys we come across better not be speaking German.” Tuttle tightened his grip on the carbine across his lap, mumbling, “Why the hell didn’t I sign out a Thompson instead of this little pop-gun?”
A long column of American trucks raced by in the opposite direction. “There,” Tommy said. “A GI convoy. Feeling better now?”
“Only if they’re not running for their fucking lives. I’m telling you, Half…don’t make me regret tagging along with you.”
Neither spoke for another minute or two, until Tuttle said, “At this rate, we should be driving right through the front gate of Fort Driant any second.”
“Don’t be silly,” Tommy replied. “That’s at least a few more miles up the road.”
Somehow, that didn’t come out as confident and reassuring as he’d hoped.
“Hey, slow down, Half. We’ve got more signs up ahead.”
Next to a French sign at an intersection announcing their arrival at Pont-à-Mousson was a standard GI signpost. There were several wooden arrows affixed to the post, each with a unit’s designation printed on it.
“Okay, now we’re talking,” Tommy said. “Fifth Division’s that-a-way.”
A few hundred yards down the road, they came to an MP checkpoint. Challenge and password were exchanged—homer and bambino—both casually blended into sentences about Babe Ruth.
“Ain’t you aviators a little lost, sir?” an MP corporal drawled. It was impossible to miss the silver wings on their leather flight jackets.
“Negative, Corporal,” Tommy replied. “I’m looking for my brother. He’s with Thirty-Seventh Tank. I hear they’re around here somewhere.”
“They the outfit from Fourth Armored that showed up in these parts about a week ago, sir?”
“Could be. I’m just working on a hunch here, Corporal.”
“Well, sir, if it’s the tankers I’m thinking of, their bivouac’s just down this road about half a mile. Don’t miss it or you’ll go swimming in the Moselle.”
Jimmy Tuttle asked, “You guys see Krauts around here much, Corporal?”
The corporal looked down to the rain-slick pavement below his feet. “Right here? No, sir.” Then he pointed north and added, “But over yonder a mile or two, there’s plenty.”
An armored unit was bivouacked right where the MP said it would be. Sentries stopped the jeep at the perimeter, the Ruthian password drill was played out once again, and they were escorted to the farmhouse that served as 37th Tank Battalion’s CP.
The same master sergeant Tommy had come to know from his previous visits to the 37th was at the desk. “I guess you’re looking for your brother again, Lieutenant,” the sergeant said. “But you ain’t never gonna find him in the dark, the way we
’re spread out here, sir. I’ll get his C.O. to round him up and send him over.”
He cranked the field phone on his desk and told the switchboard operator to connect him with Baker Company.
“Lieutenant Tuttle here is just along for the ride,” Tommy said. “Think you could find him a place to bunk for the night?”
“Sure thing,” the sergeant replied. “I can put you up in the G3 section with our ASO.”
Tommy asked, “That wouldn’t be Lieutenant Clinchmore, would it?”
“That’s affirmative, sir. You gentlemen know him?”
“We’ll all from the same squadron, Sergeant,” Tommy replied.
“Yeah, we sure do know him,” Tuttle added. “Maybe you have someplace else I could bunk?”
Tommy gave him a surprised look, but Tuttle shook his head and, in a hushed tone, said, “You were happy just to have gotten rid of him, and that’s fine. But I haven’t forgiven him for the shit he pulled. Not by a long shot.” He didn’t want to say any more in front of an NCO; their unfinished business was none of his affair.
“Yeah, sure, sir,” the sergeant said. “We got some extra cots in the liaison officers’ bunkhouse, if that suits you.”
Ten minutes later a jeep roared up to the CP. Sergeant Sean Moon climbed out—now wearing the three up and two down of a tech sergeant on his sleeve—and strolled reluctantly into the farmhouse. When he saw his younger brother, he broke into a grin. “I didn’t figure it would be you come for a visit, Half…I mean, sir.”
“That’s for damn sure,” the master sergeant said. “It’s usually the MPs looking for our Sergeant Moon.”
“You and them can lock me up in the stockade any-damn-time you want, Top,” Sean replied. “At least nobody’d be shooting at my ass in there.” He grabbed Tommy by the arm. “C’mon, Lieutenant. Let’s go some place we can talk, just you and me.”
As soon as they left the CP, the master sergeant said, “Hard to believe them two are brothers, with one a big bad bruiser and his kid brother some tiny little—”
Jimmy Tuttle cut him off. “At ease, Sergeant. Lieutenant Moon is no kid. He’s one hell of a pilot and one hell of a fighter. Size doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it, and don’t you ever forget it.”
“I was just saying, Lieutenant. Didn’t mean no disrespect.”
“Well, next time, Sergeant, try engaging your brain before you open your mouth, so maybe nobody will take you the wrong way.”
Dodging the raindrops, Tommy and Sean dashed across a courtyard to a huge barn that had been appropriated as a maintenance shed, slipping past the canvas hung over the open doorway to provide light discipline. “Hey,” Tommy said, “congratulations on the new stripe, big brother.”
“Thanks, Half. It was about time, if you ask me.”
In the dim electric light inside, several Shermans were getting new tracks. An M5 Stuart light tank was in the middle of an engine change. The dark shapes of half a dozen tanks sat outside the barn waiting their turn at heavy maintenance.
“Cadillac makes the M5, you know,” Sean said, pointing to the Stuart. “Should be top of the line, right? But it’s still got that puny little main gun. Absolutely worthless against another tank. But they ain’t bad for recon work. They can run away like hell when they have to.”
The industrial racket in the barn couldn’t mask the continuous drum roll of distant artillery. The GI mechanics didn’t seem to hear it. They toiled on as if immune to its message.
His mood darkening, Sean replied, “When’s this fucking rain gonna quit, Half?”
“Tomorrow, around noon, I’m told. What the hell are you guys doing in this spot, anyway? I thought Fourth Armored was down south of here, and way out ahead.”
“Most of the Fourth still is,” Sean replied. “Except us. We got fucked over. Detailed back here to help break these fucking forts.”
That was the last thing Tommy wanted to hear: his brother being fed into the meat grinder at Metz.
“Ain’t that the same thing you’ve been doing, Half? I mean, trying to knock out these forts? We see the jugs up there every day. At least when it ain’t raining, anyway. That Fort Driant is a real pain in my ass. I’ve been close enough to spit on it, but that’s about all the good I did.”
He somberly described the fruitless assaults, the Bangalore torpedo fiasco, the mounting casualties. “How long can those fucking Krauts hold out? They gotta be running out of everything—food, water, ammo, generator fuel. They gotta be.”
“From what I hear, Sean, they stocked some of those forts to hold out for months.”
“Oh, my achin’ ass! We been hearing the same shit.”
They fell silent, two men consumed with thoughts of their own and each other’s mortality, trying to come to grips with a common enemy from totally different perspectives.
It was Sean who broke the silence, with none of the brash confidence his voice carried in better days. Instead, Tommy heard nothing but dread. His big brother’s voice was without hope.
“What do you think, Tommy? The brass just gonna let them pick us off until we finally starve ’em out? Or is there a way to bust this thing wide open?”
He’d seen Sean like this before: so fatalistic that death was the sole, inevitable escape from war’s horror. Just like he’d been a few months back, before the tide seemed to turn for the Allies at the Falaise Pocket.
He couldn’t blame him. Sean had been through enough in this war. Most men who’d earned as many Purple Hearts were in far worse shape physically and emotionally. Or they were six feet under.
Tommy would give anything to ease his big brother’s fears. He couldn’t tell him about Operation Bucket, though. No matter how much he wanted to.
But he’s my brother, dammit. Maybe if he knew something big was coming, it might…
No, I can’t. I can’t tell anyone. Those “Bucket” planes are so easy to knock down, slow as they are and flying all alone. The wrong word slips out, the Krauts get a heads-up, and the whole plan goes to shit. A couple of flak guns near Driant would be all it takes. Or the Luftwaffe showing up.
I can’t do it. I can’t tell him. I’m sworn to secrecy.
But maybe a hint. Nothing specific. Just a hint that something’s in the works to buck him up a little.
Sean sat with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up, his head hung down. Tommy put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Here I go again, playing big brother to my big brother. War really fucks things up and spins them around, doesn’t it?
“I’ve been hearing rumors there’s a big change coming, Sean.”
A glimmer of hope shone on Sean’s face, like a condemned man who thought he’d just heard the word reprieve mentioned.
“What kind of change, Half?”
“I wish I knew.”
Sean’s expression shifted to the glower of an accuser. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Tommy. What the hell do you know?”
Tommy just leaned back against the wall and shook his head.
“Son of a bitch, Half. You never could lie worth a shit. You’re up to your ass in something, ain’t you?”
He gave no answer.
“You didn’t volunteer for some crazy shit, did you?”
Still no answer.
“How many times I gotta tell you, don’t volunteer for nothing.”
“That’s a double negative, Sean. You’re really saying volunteer for something. Maybe everything.”
“That ain’t what I mean and you know it, you stupid little jughead.”
“That’s Lieutenant Jughead to you, Sergeant.”
“Oh my god, you really did it.” There was the same uncanny certainty in Sean’s voice, something Tommy had heard so many times before in their lives. Whether it was a cheating girlfriend, a conniving boss, a neighborhood con man, or just a run-of-the-mill liar, Sean could always sniff them out, long before anyone else was even suspicious.
And now he’s sniffed me out. He can read people. He
always could. You can’t fool him.
But I still can’t tell him shit.
“You don’t remember nothing I ever taught you, do you, Tommy? And you’re supposed to be the smart one.”
“I’ll tell you what I do remember, Sean. I remember you telling me it was all just a matter of time. Well, brother, I’m here to tell you it still is. The clock on this fubar exercise at Driant is running out. So let me give you a piece of advice, too.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Don’t you go volunteering for anything either, okay?”
Sean mulled it over for a few moments. Then he said, “Okay. Deal.”
A welder’s torch flared just a few feet away, bathing them in its harsh light. Now out of the shadows, Tommy liked what he saw in his brother’s face. The tension and despair had drained away, as if the sparks of the torch had kindled new hope deep within him. If nothing else, watching the weld in progress directed Sean’s attention back to the realities of a tanker’s life.
“Hey, numbnuts,” Sean called to the welder, “that’s the worst fucking weld I ever saw. A light MG could knock that patch off. Clean it up and do it again.”
“Ain’t a goddamn thing wrong with it, Sarge,” the welder replied. “I know what the hell I’m doing.”
“The fuck you do,” Sean replied as he stood to his full, imposing height and snatched the torch from the startled welder’s hand. “Let me show you how it’s done, pal. Give me those fucking goggles.”
Tommy smiled as he watched his brother deftly wield the torch. He breathed a sigh of relief, too. He hadn’t spilled any beans about Operation Bucket. But his cryptic message had done its work: The old Sean’s back again.
The brothers talked long into the night, spirited discussions about news from home, the winter clothing Uncle Sam still hadn’t gotten around to issuing, Ike’s questionable decision to give the bulk of their gasoline to Montgomery, the foolishness of having a World Series when all the best players were in the service, and plans for drinking beer in Berlin. Or, better yet, at home in Brooklyn.
Fortress Falling (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 2) Page 12
