Fortress Falling (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 2)

by William Peter Grasso

  Then the column drove off.

  “What the hell are they going to do with all that explosive, sir?” Tuttle asked Colonel Pruitt. “Drop it on Hitler’s house or something?”

  “I think we’re going to find out the answer to that question very shortly, Lieutenant.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  At first, Major Staunton was furious. “Who is responsible for entrusting this cargo to coloreds?” he barked at the convoy lieutenant.

  “Well, sir,” the lieutenant replied, “it says right here by order of Commanding General, US Army Air Forces, Europe.”

  That meant General Spaatz.

  “Oh, I see,” Staunton replied, not nearly as belligerent as he’d been a few seconds ago. And as his ire cooled, his mind began to process opportunities that, until this moment, had seemed out of the question.

  A few hours ago, he’d checked the weather forecast for the next few days. The climactic mission of Operation Bucket was in a race with a storm front due the afternoon of 14 October. The latest forecast had moved up that front’s arrival almost twenty-four hours, to the afternoon of the 13th—tomorrow. Once the bad weather moved in, all aviation activities, to include Operation Bucket, would have to be postponed.

  Staunton recalled a conversation he’d had with General Spaatz last month, when the major had sought to postpone an Aphrodite test for some minor technical issue. The general had made his displeasure with the delay clear. He hadn’t actually uttered the sentence, but it was implicit, without a doubt: any delay due to some piddling little technical issue would be considered a failure on your part, Staunton, and yours alone.

  Failure: just the thought of the word had stung like a paddling from a schoolmaster. Aphrodite had been nothing but a failure to that point. Those who’d contributed to that failure wore the big red F around their necks for everyone in War Department to see and remember for a long, long time.

  Major Rick Staunton hadn’t been saddled with the big red F yet, and he was not about to start wearing one now. They had eighteen hours until the weather was forecast to shut down flying. They’d need eight of those hours just to load the Torpex into the baby, but if they started immediately…

  He put the brakes on his careening mind. Sure, they’d need eight hours; eight hours of daylight. Without it, the ordnance technicians couldn’t see what they were doing. For safety’s sake, you couldn’t have any electricity on the aircraft during the loading to power the interior lighting, and explosion-proof electric lighting, like the kind used by coal miners, for example, was only available at maintenance depots. Any spark could vaporize everything and everyone within several hundred yards—to include the entirety of A-90—and cause a radius of damage far greater. And, of course, kerosene or gasoline-powered lamps, with their open flames shielded only by a layer of easily breakable glass, were out of the question as lighting sources. Sunlight was the only option to illuminate the work.

  It was 2100 hours; they wouldn’t see a glimmer of daylight until 0630 tomorrow morning. If the weather front was supposed to arrive by midafternoon, that would be cutting it mighty close.

  But eight hours was the book value. The experienced ordnance techs of the Bucket team had done the job in as little as five hours when necessary, without any compromise of safety. But that was under perfect stateside conditions, not at some makeshift outpost like A-90, Staunton told himself. But surely we can find some way to do it again.

  That bridge crossed, there was another obstacle to clear: the repair to the arming system and its stray voltage had yet to be resolved. All the contacts on the grounding bus bar had been disconnected, burnished until shining clean, and reconnected. Five successive tests would have to be accomplished with no stray voltage found to consider the problem fixed. Each test was a complicated process involving simultaneous ground run-ups of both Flying Fortresses while the mothership simulated “flying” the baby by remote control.

  Four tests had been completed during the course of the evening, with no voltage found.

  On the fifth test, the flat green line spanning the cathode ray tube of Sergeant Inzetta’s oscilloscope was suddenly transformed into a jagged freehand sketch resembling the peaks of a mountain range. The stray voltage—the phantom—was back.

  “Impossible,” Major Staunton fumed as he nudged Inzetta out of the way. Running his hands along leads connecting the oscilloscope to the ship’s wiring, he added, “Have you considered this is just a poor test equipment connection, Sergeant?”

  “We’ve got a voltmeter jacked in, too, sir,” Inzetta replied. “It kicked a few spikes, just like the scope showed. They can’t both be bad connections.”

  “You’re sure of that, are you, Sergeant?” Staunton snarled as he disconnected the test equipment leads and then reconnected them, rocking the alligator clips on the ends of the wires in an attempt to seat them more firmly.

  “Try it again, Sergeant. Run another series of tests. I’ll bet you get five out of five.”

  With groans of frustration, the technicians and mechanics began yet another tedious series of tests, cranking the engines and establishing radio control from the mothership. This time, the voltage spikes appeared on the third test.

  Inzetta called a halt to the testing. “What now, sir?” he asked Staunton.

  Like a man besieged, Staunton replied, “Burnish every damn connection on that fucking bus bar again, Sergeant. And try to do it right this time.”

  Inzetta let the offense in that statement pass. Calmly, like a man resolved to his involuntary role in this budding catastrophe, he replied, “That’ll take all night, sir.”

  “Well, isn’t that convenient, Sergeant, because you just happen to have all night. Now get your men back to work on the double.”

  As Staunton stormed off, Rocco Inzetta was sure he could hear the major mumbling, “Or do I have to do everything my goddamn self around here?”

  He was still mumbling when he brushed past Tommy like he wasn’t even there.

  “Anybody see Sergeant Dandridge?” Tommy asked Inzetta.

  “Some of the mothership crew went into town, sir. We don’t need them to run these tests, so Major Mumbles let them go.”

  “Do you guys always call the major that?”

  “Actually, it just came to me, Lieutenant. We usually call that pompous prick a lot worse…” Inzetta caught himself before any more insubordinate talk spilled out. Then he added, “With all due respect, of course, sir. But he does talk to himself a lot.”

  “We had a guy in the squadron like that once,” Tommy said. “We called him Major Disaster. Thought he was the only man walking the planet with a lick of sense, even though he was accident-prone as hell.”

  “What happened to him, sir?”

  “According to Axis Sally, he’s cooling his heels as a POW in some Stalag Luft.”

  Back at the 301st, Tommy found Colonel Pruitt in his quarters. When told of the change of plans—the one that would move Operation Bucket up an entire day—the colonel replied, “I figured as much. Did you see the weather forecast, Half? Good thing we told Bob Kidd to get here early tomorrow.”

  Tommy filled Pruitt in on the lingering problem with the baby’s arming circuit. The colonel thought it over for a moment and then said, “Where are they planning to arm this thing once it’s airborne, Tommy?”

  “We figure over the jettison zone should be the safest place, sir.”

  “Yeah, you ain’t kidding,” Pruitt replied. “Too bad we don’t have any oceans around here we could do it over. You’re not planning on flying straight over Toul, either, are you?”

  “Not if we can help it, sir.”

  Pruitt shook his head and said, “God help us all, Tommy.”

  They moved on to some planning details. Pruitt asked, “You got the escorts all coordinated?”

  “Yes, sir. They were pitching a fit, too. Figured we wouldn’t be flying again until the fourteenth. They had to squeeze us back into their busy schedule, the poor bastards.”
<
br />   “Just so they keep the Krauts away,” Pruitt replied. “Those big, slow Flying Forts make nice, fat targets.”

  “I was thinking, sir…can you imagine some ME or FW jockeys pumping incendiaries into the baby? That would be the last thing they ever did. When she blew up, they’d all be turned to dust. They’d go to Kraut heaven wondering what the hell they did wrong.”

  Pruitt scanned the mission roster for tomorrow. “I’m going to use Tuttle as my backup,” he said. “If something happens to me, or I can’t put the junk on the money, it’ll be up to him to do the napalm honors. Every other ship in the squadron will go back to hitting Driant’s sister forts at first light, along with the rest of Nineteenth Tac Command. That’s the most we can do to make sure the baby doesn’t get knocked down by a lucky round of Kraut artillery.”

  The colonel took another look at the weather forecast. “You sure they can’t go earlier than noon, Tommy?”

  “I think even noon is pushing it, sir.”

  “It’s just that if this cloud cover moves in like the metro guys think it will, it’s going to ruin your coming out of the sun plan. There won’t be any sun. You’re all going to stand out against the high cumulus like a sore thumb.”

  “At least it shouldn’t ruin our visibility over the target, sir.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Pruitt replied.

  The night air carried the rumble of distant artillery into the colonel’s quarters. They could feel the impacts of shell with earth, each a faint quiver that passed right through the soles of their shoes.

  They both knew what it meant. Somewhere around Metz, GIs were getting pounded.

  Tommy had one more question. “Third Army, sir…do they know we’re coming early? We know they hit Driant again today. They’ve got to be well clear of the place by noon tomorrow.”

  “You’re worried about your brother, aren’t you, Tommy?”

  Before he could answer, a distant yet especially strong impact made the cups on the table rattle.

  “You’d better believe it, sir.”

  “Well, try not to worry about it too much. The updated Bucket schedule went out to Bradley’s HQ just before you walked in here.”

  It was just past midnight when General Patton’s aide woke him. “General Bradley’s on the horn for you, sir. It’s urgent.”

  “It better goddamn well be urgent,” Patton grumbled as he climbed out of bed in the country estate near Arnaville, the maison de campagne he’d claimed as his headquarters.

  Bradley came right to the point. “George, pull all your troops back from Fort Driant immediately. Operation Bucket has been moved up.”

  “Brad, it’s the middle of the fucking night. Moved up until when?”

  “Today, in the early afternoon. Maybe sooner. Get your men clear.”

  “Brad, are you aware I have a battalion holding ground inside Driant as we speak?”

  “No, I was not.” From the sound of his voice, Patton was fairly sure Bradley’s face was red and his eyes were bugging out with rage.

  “When the hell did this happen, George? And what exactly does holding ground mean?”

  Patton tried to explain his men’s successes so far inside Driant. Bradley sounded less than impressed.

  “Pull them out. You’re still running a siege, dammit. I specifically instructed you not to do that. I repeat, get your men out of there.”

  “I can’t, Brad,” Patton whined. “We’re so close to taking the turrets. And once we do that—”

  Bradley cut him off. “And once you do that, there’s only about a dozen more forts you’d have to take, not to mention Metz itself. I don’t want to still be sitting on the Moselle next summer, George, rebuilding your shattered army. Get out of the way and let the Air Force finish this for you.”

  “It may not be as easy as that, Brad. They’ve been under a barrage since nightfall. At least they’re safe inside the fortifications, for now.”

  “Hear me and hear me good, George. I will not have another Operation Cobra fiasco on my watch.”

  “And you won’t, Brad. You have my word. But do me one favor…I can take this fort. I’m almost there. Just give me some more time.”

  Bradley sounded cold as ice as he replied, “Oh-nine-hundred. You have until oh-nine-hundred to either take Fort Driant or have your men five miles away from it.” He paused and then added, “And I mean oh-nine-hundred today, George.”

  “Thank you, Brad. You’ll see…Fort Driant is as good as in the bag.”

  “Bullshit yourself all you like, George. But don’t bullshit me.”

  Then Bradley rang off. There was a resounding click on the line as the circuit was disconnected.

  To George Patton, that click sounded like the cocking of a gun pointed right at his head.

  To Sean Moon, deep in the cellar below Bunker 4, nothing seemed anywhere near in the bag. As unnerving as the continuous bombardment had been, they were safe from it below ground. What really bothered them was what would happen if the bombardment stopped.

  “I think our biggest danger is Krauts coming from outside, down the tunnel,” Lieutenant Chenoweth said.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right, sir,” Sean replied. “Any Krauts trying to come through the door from the gun batteries or down those stairs are gonna be stepping into a slaughterhouse. Of course, if they manage to let loose with a bunch of grenades, they’re gonna take some of us with ’em…”

  They stood at the threshold of the door that led to the tunnel and the outside world, reviewing their defenses. The flashes of shells impacting near the far end of the tunnel lit that passageway as if a mass of paparazzi were storming the place.

  Sean said, “The only thing that worries me, sir, is if some Kraut gets far enough down the tunnel that he can let loose with a panzerfaust or some other kind of rocket. But as long as this thirty cal here can keep firing, this tunnel’s a natural kill zone.”

  “Yeah,” Chenoweth replied, “but I was thinking of something else, too. What if our guys are still holding Bunker 3? I don’t see why they would have run when the shelling started. They’re as safe in there as we are down here.”

  “So?” Sean asked. “What’s the difference if they’re there or not, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, they’d have a pretty commanding field of fire over anyone trying to get near this tunnel entrance. Plus, if we’re holding Bunker 3, we’d be able to use the tunnel to get back and forth from here to there. And according to the fort’s plans, there’s no other way in or out of these bunkers, so no Krauts are going to come out of the woodwork on us, not as long as we hold this tunnel.”

  “We got radios, Lieutenant. Maybe we take a stroll toward the end of the tunnel and see if we can raise them.”

  “Sure, but if we don’t raise them, it doesn’t mean they’re not there. I think we ought to confirm who, if anyone, is inside Bunker 3. If we find GIs in there, we need to all get on the same page. If there’s nobody at all in there, we need to get some of our guys from the cellar to hold the bunker.”

  “So you’re saying we launch a recon patrol…”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying, Sergeant.”

  Sean expected Chenoweth to say something more, but he didn’t. He just stood there, fixing Sean in a questioning gaze.

  “Oh, I get it,” Sean said. “You want me to lead the patrol.”

  “I think you’re the best man for the job at the moment, Sergeant.”

  He knew the lieutenant was right about that. It’s either him or me that does it…and he’s the one who’s gotta take care of all the explosives and shit. Right now, I’m just another corn plaster commando with a lot of stripes.

  “All right, Lieutenant. I’ll do it. Just remember I didn’t volunteer for this shit.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sean took three of the tankers for his recon team. He left Fabiano with Lieutenant Chenoweth. “You’ll need Fab if you get some trouble down here in the cellar, Lieutenant,” Sean said. “He’s a good m
an in a fight. One of the best, in fact. Just remember he’s a little off his rocker.”

  The recon team made its way out of the tunnel, waiting near the door that led outside until the German artillery barrage had swept to another part of Fort Driant’s roof. They’d been listening to the impacts sweep back and forth across the fort for hours and gotten the timing of that sweep down to a science. “One thing about them Krauts,” Sean told his men, “they can be so damn dependable sometimes.”

  “How long can they keep this shit up, Sarge?” one of the tankers asked.

  “As long as they got ammo, they can shoot,” Sean replied. “Those barrels ain’t gonna melt. We’re listening to lots of guns firing just a couple at a time. I’ll bet the gun crews are working in shifts, too. Especially the loaders. You do get beat after a while, dragging around them big, heavy rounds. Gotta get a break now and then.”

  Another minute passed before Sean said, “Okay, here’s our chance. Move fast, but stay the fuck alert and stay close. No stumbling around in the dark.”

  After each man acknowledged with a nod of his head, he added, “Move out.”

  It was less than fifty yards to the northeast corner of the building known as Bunker 3, that two-story mini-fortress built into the side of a hill. This was the third time Sean had found himself in action against this bunker. But it was the first time he’d done it without being in the turret of a tank.

  One thing they hadn’t realized down in the tunnel: an armored observation post perched atop the central fortification was using a searchlight to scan the area within Driant’s perimeter. But like the barrage, its sweep seemed to follow a specific pattern. Sean told himself, Shouldn’t be too hard to keep ourselves out of the spotlight.

  They rounded the corner of the bunker to its front face, the side facing away from the hill into which it was built. Just feet from the entryway, they paused, their bodies pressed against the wall for whatever cover it might provide, and tried to shake off the mortal fear that grips every man who doesn’t know to what hell his next step will carry him.