by John Dalmas
The next morning in the Nissen, Cargill apologized through swollen lips. "Macurdy, I was an asshole to bum your foot yesterday. I know it's not your fault that Potenza's in the stockade. All I can say is, I loved him like a brother. We all did. You'd have to know him."
"I've got no argument with that," Macurdy answered. "People ought to stand up for their buddies. But if I'm not willing to stand up for myself, I've got no business being here."
"Amen to that," said their squad sergeant, who wore the name Rinaldi above his pocket. "You're a good man, Macurdy, in more ways than one." He shook Macurdy's hand, and one by one the others followed, only Carlson abstaining. Rinaldi scowled. "What's the matter, Carlson. You short on brains? Or just can't admit you acted like dog shit?"
Carlson stalked out, but in the supper line spoke quietly to Macurdy: "I shouldn't have cut your laces. I know it and everyone else knows it. But goddamn I was pissed when they railroaded Potenza! Six months for chrissake, for one lousy brawl! I've seen guys do lots worse in Phenix City and not even draw company punishment. And you couldn't ask for a better trooper than he was."
Macurdy didn't point out the differences between Phenix City and London. He simply smiled slightly, as much as he thought Carlson was up to having just then. "It's an imperfect world," he said, "but Potenza will be back. If not to the 503rd, then to one of the other outfits forming up. And whoever gets him, they'll have themselves a real fighting man."
Carlson nodded soberly. "You got that right," he said, then put out his hand and they shook on it.
Colonel Raff was a fanatic on endurance and toughness, and pushed his battalion mercilessly. In June, soon after landing, it had undergone intensive combat training by officers of the British 1st Airborne Division, and in July they underwent sixteen tough but valuable days at the Mortehoe Commando School. They became skilled in night operations, learned the proper way to silence sentries, became competent demolitionists, and could fire and field-strip German, Italian, and British weapons as readily as their own.
And the lessons they learned were passed on to replacements like Macurdy by the battalion's own officers and noncoms. What they didn't do for two months was jump out of airplanes. Transport planes were in short supply, and none were available to the battalion till after Macurdy had joined it. Then they jumped frequently, from altitudes as low as 350 feet. Once they jumped in Northern Ireland as part of joint English and American maneuvers.
Meanwhile Macurdy transferred his marksmanship with the S amp;W Model 10.38 caliber police revolver to the army's heavy M1911A1 Colt.45 automatic.
It seemed to Macurdy that Varia's invisibility spell would be very useful, even though it was less than completely reliable. But he didn't know how she did it, except in a very general way. However, he'd had further input on invisibility spells later, from a tomttu named Maikel. Among other things, Maikel had said that intention was a key element. And Maikel's spell, at least, had only to be cast once. It could then be activated and deactivated by consciously willing it.
Working from this basis of limited knowledge, Macurdy experimented when he could, until wearing his American uniform with its airborne insignia, he walked one evening through a well-lit pub full of British servicemen (engaged with their beer, girls, and conversations), and wasn't noticed.
Obviously' it was at least somewhat effective, but its parameters of protection were uncertain. Maikel's could be seen through, at least by some, if a person knew where to look, and Varia's wasn't reliable in full sunlight. But almost certainly, his wasn't the same as either of theirs.
Those were things he'd keep in mind. Meanwhile he soon had a reputation for his stealth at night. He avoided testing it by day. At night his skill could be written off as "natural"-an ability to move silently and skillfully in darkness and shadow. But by day? To explain his talent as sorcery didn't seem wise.
In his fifth week in the 503rd, Macurdy was called into the office of Captain Grady, the company commander. Grady wasn't the only officer waiting for him: a Lieutenant Netzloff was there. "Macurdy," Grady said, "we've been looking through your service record. Everywhere you've been, your older has accumulated favorable comments and commendations. Lieutenant D'Emilio and Sergeant Boileau agree with them. So although you haven't been with us long, I'm promoting you to corporal, to take over for a man we lost this morning." He turned to Netzloff. "Lieutenant, he's yours. Tell him what he needs to know."
Macurdy and Netzloff left then. Beyond telling him what squad he'd be in, the lieutenant didn't say much except: "There's two or three in the squad who might be a little sour about you ranking them without having the training and experience they have. But Lieutenant D'Emilio says you've got a knack for handling things, and his men like and respect you. So the captain and I are trusting you to handle any objections your new squad might have. Now, let's go find Sergeant Ruiz. He's your platoon sergeant."
Staff Sergeant Ramon Ruiz was as large as Macurdy, and looked as strong, a calm direct man who neither in words, face, or aura showed any resentment toward this relative greenhorn coming into his platoon as a noncom. "Where you from, Macurdy?" he asked.
"Nehtaka, Oregon."
"A westerner! I'm from a ranch near Penasco, New Mexico. What'd you do before you joined up?"
"I was a deputy sheriff." Then, in case this sergeant had reservations about lawmen, Macurdy added, "Before that I logged."
"A deputy sheriff? How come the army didn't put you in the MPs?"
Macurdy grinned. "I sure don't know. I speak pretty good German, too; I'm surprised they didn't send me to the Pacific." The sergeant grunted. "Speak German? You don't have a German name."
"I married into a German family, and my wife and I lived with them. The grandmother didn't speak any English, so they all talked German in the house, and I had to learn it."
This sharpened Ruiz's interest. "What do they think of you fighting the Germans?"
"They think of it as fighting Nazis. The whole family hates Hitler, especially the old lady. She says he'll be the ruin of Germany."
"She got that right. Well, it's a good thing to have another guy in the platoon that speaks German. A guy named Mueller speaks it, too; he's from North Dakota." Ruiz got to his feet. "Come on. Al. introduce you to Sergeant Powers. He's your squad leader."
The battalion had read and heard about the disastrous cross-channel Dieppe raid by seven thousand commandos, a few weeks earlier. And eager though they were to see action, the debacle at Dieppe was sobering. Even elite units could come to grief in an operation sufficiently ill-conceived.
One day they were visited and inspected in ranks by the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who paused to ask questions of the men. Macurdy was as impressed by her aura as by her height, and she was taller than most of the troopers.
Meanwhile Mary had written that she was pregnant. Curtis didn't much fret about it; he was remarkably focused on where he was and what he was doing. Which helped him get another quick promotion to buck sergeant, replacing a squad leader who'd broken a collarbone.
Shortly afterward, the men were put on restriction and briefed on their upcoming operation, until th knew their drop zone and missions about as well as they coup considering they still didn't know where in the world that drop zone was.
Not that they'd drop there, or carry out that mission-a remarkable set of snafus would intervene-but they'd make themselves valuable regardless, on the ground and in the evolution of new warfare.
Finally they were loaded onto trains and taken to Land's End, in the extreme southwest of England.
As it turned out, Macurdy had no problems at all in his new squad. It already knew of him by reputation; he was a man people noticed.
As summer waned into autumn, their officers were briefed on what was to be the battalion's-and the Army's-first airborne operation. And although for some weeks the troopers were not told what was up, training intensified, carrying now a sense of urgency.
They were made familiar with French arms and equip
ment, which to some suggested a raid into German-occupied France.
15
Snafu in the Desert
On November 4, 1942, 2nd Battalion of the 503 Parachute Infantry Regiment was put on a train. They'd removed their unit patches. Their equipment, even their jump boots and jump suits, was sent separately; no one was to know they were paratroopers.
Their route was indirect, and of course they spent a lot of time waiting. On November 7 they arrived at two small airfields in the southwesternmost corner of England, Lands End There they learned what their mission actually was, and what the circumstances were. In small groups, again to be inconspicuous, thirty-nine twin-engined C47 transports arrived, to fly them to French-ruled Algeria, in North Africa.
At that stage of the war, there could be no adequate fighter escort for slow, unarmed transports flyin over Nazi-occupied France. So the small armada was to fly well out over the Atlantic, and then, without Spanish approval, cross neutral Spain and the western Mediterranean, to capture two key airfields in Algeria, to keep them out of German hands. Meanwhile seaborne attacks would take place at the city of Oran and elsewhere.
There were complications of course: the French defense forces. "Free France" was ruled by a Nazi puppet dictatorship under 86-year-old Marshal Henri Petain, who'd sworn allegiance to Hitler. An American general, Mark Clark, had been landed covertly at Oran by submarine, to negotiate a secret agreement with the French commander there, allowing allied forces to land unopposed. But considering Petain's attitude, it wasn't certain the French commander would be obeyed.
If it seemed the French would fight after all, the planes would leave England early enough to jump their troopers while it was dark in Algeria. If it seemed the French would not fight, the planes would leave later, and land with their troopers in daylight. In either case, the battalion was to secure the airfields from possible German takeover.
There was also the problem of the planes finding the drop zone, 1,600 miles away over water and across Spain, without benefit of beacons enroute, or familiarity with Spanish geography. The pilots hadn't been trained for that sort of navigation. Most wouldn't even be given a map; they were to follow the leader. On the plus side, compass bearings should keep them approximately on course (unless it was windy), and the British would have a beacon ship some miles off the port of Oran, near the targeted airbases; the planes should pick up its signal as the crossed the southeastern coast of Spain. It would also notify the planes if the French changed their minds. (Unfortunately its radioman was given the wrong frequency, and its signals were never received.)
The drop zone itself was to be marked by a spy-placed radar beacon to be activated shortly before the troop planes arrived. (However, the intelligence officer who placed and activated it was given the wrong expected arrival time. When the planes didn't appear, he blew up his top-secret device, as he was supposed to, and slipped away dressed as an Arab.)
At almost the last hour, word came that the French would cooperate. Thus the planes waited an extra four hours before taking off, in order to arrive at the landing site in daylight.
It was not a joyride. The troopers sat shoulder to shoulder on metal bucket seats, the only upholstery their packed chutes. At the head of the troop compartment were two strapped-down barrels of aviation gasoline, backing up the fuel tanks and reminding the troopers that this would be a long flight.
The November night was chilly, and not only was the compartment unheated, the doorways held no doors; the propwash sucked out and blew away whatever body heat they produced. Furthermore they were flying at an altitude of nearly two miles.
Despite the cold, they dozed, Macurdy better than most because he drew heat from the Web of the World. From time to time he'd waken, to peer through the small windows behind him. The only lights were one or two glowing cigarette tips marking wakeful troopers. On almost none of those occasions did he hear a word from anyone, and for the first several hours, all the window showed him were ocean and stars, and the blue lights of other lanes in the formation.
After some hours his dreams became restless, and he awoke to bouncing and swaying. Turning to the window again, his eyes found darkness, rain, and cloud. What he couldn't see was the thirty -knot east wind. They'd run out of their good weather. If there were other planes nearby, he couldn't see them, either.
At 4 AM the compartment lights came on and field rations were passed around-crackers, canned meat, and candy. Then the lights were turned out again. Macurdy was wakeful now, waiting for a dawn that seemed slow in coming. When it did, they were over water-not the Bay of Biscay this time, but the Mediterranean.
They'd flown out of the storm; the sky was merely overcast. Men turned in their seats to peer out the small windows. As the light strengthened, Macurdy could see brown hills ahead. The others saw them too; what they couldn't see were the other thirty-eight planes. Four others, yes, but not thirty-eight. Had they gotten lost in the storm? The talk picked up. Oran was supposed to be up ahead somewhere. Had the pilot gotten the signal from the beacon ship? Where was the invasion fleet? Dead ahead maybe, someone suggested, where only the pilot could see it.
Lieutenant Warner was the senior trooper on board, and getting to his feet, he went to the cockpit. A few minutes later e came back out. "At ease!" he shouted, and the talking stopped. "The pilot doesn't know exactly where we are, or where the other thirty-four planes are. The storm winds blew from the east, which means we blew off course to the west. When we get closer to shore, he and this group are going to fly east for a while, till they see some landmark they recognize from the map."
There were groans and a few oaths. "What about the beacon ship?" someone asked.
"They haven't heard a peep from it. They'll know Oran for sure though, when they see it." Then he moved on to his seat. The Pratt amp; Whitney engines continued their reassuring roar, smooth and constant, as if they could go on forever.
With land close ahead, the five planes veered eastward, continuing on a line of flight that allowed the troopers to make out Arab villages on the shore. Half an hour later, the Lieutenant disappeared into the cockpit again, and this time stayed a while. while. Finale stuck his head out, grinning.
"They know where they are now. They're going inland, and et to La Senia from the west." This didn't bring actual cheers, ut Macurdy felt the tension ease. The airfield at La Senia was their primary target. Engines droning steadily, they flew inland over barren rugged hills.
Soon he could see a large flat area with a whitish look, that he thought might be a salt flat, a dry desert lake. He'd never seen one before, but it fitted the description. Warner came out of the cockpit again. "They've spotted more 47s ahead," he said, "sitting on the ground with guys around them, and our gas gauge reads empty. We're going to land."
There were no cheers, and not much was said, except the wry comment that, if that was La Senia Airfield below, or any other goddamned airfield, they'd sure as hell camouflaged the hangars well.
Other groups of C47s arrived after they did. The lakebed, which their pilot said was 35 miles long and 7 wide, consisted of a salty crust beneath which was the stickiest mud Macurdy had ever experienced. Walk fifty feet, and each boot had ten pounds of it stuck on like glue. None of the pilots had heard a sound from the beacon ship, or picked up the radar beacon that was supposed to mark the drop zone.
Some of the planes that had crossed the coast near Oran had been fired on from the ground; the French had decided to fight after all. When Colonel Raff arrived with six planeloads of troopers, and spotted the planes on the lakebed, the nonjumping Air Corps officer in overall command of the operation radioed him that they were taking sniper fire, and were threatened by enemy armor. So Raff and the six planeloads jumped to attack the armor with small arms, grenades, and anti-tank mines. (Bazookas were still unknown.) The colonel hit a large rock when he landed, broke a couple of ribs and was spitting blood. The sniping, it turned out, was at such long range, it had failed to hit anyone, while the "enemy armor
" turned out to be an American armored reconnaissance patrol that had gotten through the French defenses earlier that morning.
Before long, most of the 39-plane armada was there in the mud, with too little gas to fly anywhere, and the nearest target was not La Senia, but the military airfield at Tafaraoui, 38 miles away, much of that distance on the lakebed. Part of the battalion was left with the stranded planes. The rest started hiking through the gumbo toward Tafaraoui. Macurdy had thought that any exertion they'd experience in the field couldn't be worse than they'd survived in training. Now, trudging through the gumbo, he changed his mind. A trooper name Hennessy, a Wyoming cowboy, called it "goddamn 'dobe clay, the worst fucking shit in the world," and no one argued with him.
They hiked all night, arriving at the airfield not long after dawn, utterly bushed, to find it in the hands of an American armored force. The field was beautiful in a way: Rows of willow trees along the road, a tall pink water tower, pink barracks… but Macurdy was too tired to appreciate it.
Some of 2nd Battalion's troopers were already there, some of them dead. While Macurdy and the others had been slogging through the mud, the afternoon before, the force left behind had gotten a radio call. American armor had just taken Tafaraoui, and needed infantry to guard five hundred French prisoners, so Raff ordered the remaining dregs of gas drained from the other planes, until they had enough for three of them to fly there. Then he'd loaded the three with troopers-as many as they'd hold-and the planes had taken off. Partway there, they'd been shot up by three French Dewoitine fighter planes, killing or wounding twenty Americans, and forcing the transports to land on the lakebed again.
Most of the troopers they'd carried, including some of the wounded, marched much of the night to reach Tafaraoui. There, with more than a little satisfaction, they heard that a flight of British Spitfires had jumped the Dewoitines and shot all of them down.
