Unpunished

by William Peter Grasso

  Ultimately, the 21-year-old had apologized for being uncooperative. Then he asked if there was any work for a mechanic available, since his job—his plane—was no more. She patiently explained he was a guest; he did not need to earn his keep. He rambled on about how he needed to stay busy, to work with his hands. Thanks to his captain, those hands were now idle. “It shouldn’ta been like that, ma’am…it just wasn’t right. He killed The Lady.” She told him it might be possible to work something out. Swedish Air Force personnel had enough to do looking after their own planes. If Sergeant Morris wanted to help maintain the interned American planes, that could be arranged.

  Sergeant Frank Hughes, the gaunt tail gunner, hardly spoke at all. When he did speak, it was about home: halting, tormented words about a farm in the American Midwest, a place called Nebraska. A girl waiting for him there, in that land that was like heaven in his young mind. He was not sure why he was here, why his plane had left the formation and flown, alone, to Sweden. It was not their first mission, he said; they had taken fire before. “Threw away the bombs and bullets, like we were surrendering. It just don’t make no sense, ma’am…but I gotta do what the man says, don’t I? And I’m scared to jump…especially out of a perfectly good airplane.”

  Sergeant Anthony J. Moscone. Poor Tony: that’s what they all called him. He said nothing at first, just stared vacantly into space. There was little point in conducting an interview. As she summoned a policeman to escort this shattered boy to the doctor, he finally spoke: Are we home? Are we home yet, Dave? Tell me, Dave…Hey, where’s Harry?

  Dave. Sergeant David Linker: waist gunner, Moscone’s buddy and the missing Harry Lapinski’s buddy, as well. The most talkative of the enlisted men. The youngest at 18 and the only crewmember who did not smoke or drink. Keen mind. And a very smart mouth sometimes.

  I’ll bet he asked me more bloody questions than I asked him:

  What about Sweden’s neutrality: did life really go on as before, even with the rest of the world around you at war? (Of course not. How could it?)

  Was it true that Sweden continued to trade with Nazi Germany? (Yes, but we would still be trading with Britain and the US, as well, if not for blockade of the North Sea by Germany. Half of our merchant fleet now sails with Allied convoys across the Atlantic.)

  Why weren’t they in the custody of the armed forces? (Actually, you are, but our military is far too busy with border security to play at being innkeepers to a few, sporadically arriving aircrew. You’ll have to settle for civilian officials of the Ministry of Defence. Besides, we in the Ministry speak better English.)

  Will we be under guard? (Technically, yes, but I believe you will find, at most, one soldier or policeman assigned to you; and his attentions will, no doubt, be perfunctory.)

  Where was the nearest synagogue? (Directions were given.)

  Could I wear a yarmulke on the Sabbath? (Yes, or any other day you choose, like the tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from occupied Scandinavian countries now living in Sweden.)

  Were they really to remain in Sweden for the duration of the war? (Probably.) What if we try to escape? (Where would you go? You’re surrounded by Germans or nations friendly to them.) No, really…What would happen if we escaped? (If we catch you, we’ll have to throw you in the nick for a wee bit. If you succeed, good luck to you.)

  What happens to us if Germany wins? (I wish I knew.)

  Pola was sure that, as a child, David Linker would have preferred debating the merits of Roosevelt’s New Deal or discussing the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany rather than play children’s games.

  Then he asked what medical treatment was available for Tony Moscone. (The doctors would do their best.) Quietly, he added: “He’s not going to be put in some insane asylum, is he? Tony’s the only reason I’m here…Maybe I should have jumped with Lieutenant O’Hara and taken Tony with me. Ahh, who am I kidding…that would have never worked. Get us both killed trying.”

  Last, but by no means least, her thoughts turned to Lieutenant Joseph P. Gelardi. Immediately likeable, a person with whom you felt instantly in league. Wedding ring. My age. A sharp intellect, quite like Linker’s but without the verbosity. Mathematician from MIT. We had both started our doctoral studies before the war intervened. Trim, average height, wavy dark hair. Bloody handsome. A smile like the morning sun. Polite, considerate, probably not a devious bone in his body…quite unlike his boorish, condescending captain. Appreciative of my efforts on behalf of his crewmates (again, quite unlike that bloody wanker of a captain). An excellent listener. And a good storyteller, too. I couldn’t help but laugh as he told of Pilcher’s expecting him to navigate over Sweden using only a tourist’s road map—and his pathetic attempt to comply. But then he had become subdued and said, “Pilcher’s the boss…but for the life of me, I don’t know why we came here…like his mind was made up in advance.”

  Perhaps Joe is a bit naïve about people and their motivations. Or extremely generous of their flaws. But still bloody handsome.

  They talked of the war in general and internment in detail. Joe had said, “I guess staying here until the end of the war isn’t so bad…it’s going to be over by Christmas, you know. That would be about the end of our tour, anyway…if we survived our 35 missions.”

  Pola had replied, “Over by Christmas, you say? And who will be the victor?”

  Chapter Seven

  “Is that a goddamn wolf…or the biggest fucking dog I ever seen?” Lou DiNapoli hissed as he drew back against the wall of the old barn. He was searching for a weapon among the tools and farm implements scattered within that rickety structure. Something with a long handle—to hold off that gigantic thing on four legs.

  “Easy, Louie…no sudden moves,” Fred O’Hara said, locking eyes with the snarling animal. He decided it was better just to stay seated on this pile of straw. He had no idea how his injured ankle would manage an attempt to stand, even after a night’s rest. He might stumble, lurch—and that thing would take it as a threat, no doubt, and be on him in a heartbeat.

  After the escape from the train, they had stumbled through the woods for hours, heading west, with DiNapoli playing human crutch to O’Hara’s useless ankle. The woods had yielded to farmland, with few places to hide. This barn was the only refuge in sight. Mercifully, save an abundance of mice, it had been unoccupied; no animals to announce their arrival. Until now.

  A weathered old man appeared in the doorway. He shouted commands to the animal in German and the big dog retreated, grumbling in protest all the while. Then more words, this time to the intruders. Words they could not understand.

  “What do you think old Fritz is saying, Lieutenant?”

  “Beats the hell out of me. Here…let me try this,” O’Hara replied. He pointed to himself, then DiNapoli. Then he pointed to the sky with one hand, patting the silver pilot’s wings embossed on his flying jacket with the other for emphasis.

  “I think I should beat both their brains in with an axe or something,” Lou mumbled, his eyes still frantically searching for any weapon he could reach before that monster dog ripped them to shreds.

  “Easy, Louie…let this play out. He ain’t got a gun…and he coulda sicced big Wolfgang on us a long time ago.”

  “You think he understands what we’re saying, Lieutenant?”

  “No, I don’t,” O’Hara replied, repeating the skyward hand gesture.

  Then the old man nodded, pointed to the sky. He understood. He made a gesture to the airmen that said Wait…Stay…and left the barn. The dog remained at the door, a growling, unhappy sentry.

  He returned minutes later, carrying bread, sausage, and bottles of beer. He laid the food and drink on the ground in front of the airmen. Then he left once more, issuing another stern command to the dog, who paced in a tight circle, then lay down, still grumbling. Its eyes were locked on the food the intruders were devouring. A string of drool began to drip from its mouth.

  Between mouthfuls, DiNapoli said, “Goddamn, this is fant
astic! What is this? Bratwurst? Knackwurst?”

  “Who gives a flying fuck? Clam up and eat.”

  “Yeah,” DiNapoli replied. “Who knows…it could be our last meal.”

  “Always the fucking optimist, ain’t ya, Louie? Let’s do ourselves a favor…save a few scraps for that mutt.”

  Their feeding frenzy was over quickly. The dog had gotten his scraps, too, thrown from a safe distance. It ceased its grumbling. But it still would not budge from the door.

  “Is there any other way out of this dump?” DiNapoli wondered aloud, scanning the featureless walls all around them.

  “What’s the hurry, Louie? This may not be such a bad deal. I’m betting old Fritz don’t call the cops on us. Maybe we should lie low here a few days. In this terrain, we’d only be able to travel at night and hide out by day…this farmland ain’t much for cover and concealment.”

  “So you think we should just sit here…guarded by that fucking monster?”

  “I’m just saying that maybe this ain’t such a bad deal, Louie. Get my ankle healed up and figure out where the fuck we are. We can’t be more than a few miles from where we bolted from that train. We were making pretty crappy time on three legs…I owe you my life, Louie.”

  “Don’t sweat it. You would have done the same for me,” DiNapoli replied, his body still aching from holding up his lieutenant all that way.

  “Yeah, I guess so…We were real lucky the Krauts weren’t chasing us, too.”

  “Amen to that, Lieutenant. But that can’t last forever.”

  “No shit. But I’ve been thinking, Louie. We’ve got no prayer of getting to friendly territory on foot. But if we could get our hands on a plane…”

  DiNapoli’s response began harshly. “Steal a fucking GERMAN plane? And fly it over friendly lines? That has got to be the most…” Then he paused. His tone softened: “You know…why the fuck not? What other chance do we have? You could really fly a Kraut plane?”

  “If you can fly a monster like the B-17, you can fly anything. It’s worth a shot, no? I just need one favor, Louie. If you’re gonna be in this with me, start calling me Fred.”

  “Anything you say, Freddy…I’m your man.”

  “Good. Now let’s see if we can buy a few days from old Fritz and Wolfie...without getting our asses turned in.”

  “Or chewed up like hamburger,” DiNapoli added, eyeing the dog warily. “Shaking the Krauts ain’t bad enough, but a fucking dog, too?”

  Chapter Eight

  Frank Hughes was the first to say it out loud: “We’re gonna get shot as deserters, ain’t we?”

  The other members of The Lady M’s crew sat in distressed silence, all except Captain Leonard Pilcher. He was visibly becoming more annoyed by the minute. He hated these weekly meetings, but their Swedish hosts required them. He saw no further reason to associate with these men who used to be his crew. But he was still the commander of record and the Swedish government, represented by that insufferable blonde bitch Pola Nilsson-MacLeish, insisted that he help ensure the welfare and proper behavior of his men, whether he wanted to or not. Some Scotsman’s whore, he called her, though not yet to her face. She was nothing but a royal pain in his ass.

  Pola sat quietly, glaring at Pilcher through the uneasy silence born of Hughes’s question. It was not her business to answer it; that was the Captain’s job. She took a quick glance at Joe Gelardi. His troubled expression was no different than Linker’s or Morris’s as they pondered that question, which they had been avoiding ever since their arrival in Sweden three weeks ago: how would the United States government view their little excursion? Would they see it as an act of desertion or an act of necessity? Were they traitors or heroes? In their hearts, they all harbored the same thought: Was this trip necessary? The Lady M was okay. This was all the captain’s doing…we just followed his orders. But the guys who jumped—O’Hara, Harkin, and DiNapoli—what would they say…if they’re still alive?

  Tony Moscone sat quietly next to David Linker. His facial expression was as blank as the day they arrived. He seemed to grasp nothing of what was happening.

  Pola grew impatient with Pilcher’s irritation…and his silence. “Captain,” she said, “I believe the floor is yours.”

  Up your hole, bitch, he thought as he stood, one foot propelling the flimsy chair backwards. It hit the wall, then fell on its side, the cracking noise and skittering motion seeming unduly dramatic in the awkward tension of the drab room. Gelardi, Morris, Linker, and Hughes all flinched; Pola and Moscone did not.

  “I’m gonna tell you morons for the last time,” Pilcher began, “I did what I thought was necessary, and you followed my orders. If that makes you deserters, then fuck Eighth Air Force, fuck General Jimmy Doolittle, and fuck Franklin Delano Roosevelt. No court martial in the world would ever convict me. I didn’t fly a perfectly good airplane here.”

  Bullshit, thought Ed Morris.

  An agitated David Linker jumped up to speak. “But what about Lieutenant O’Hara and Lieutenant Harkin and Lou DiNapoli?”

  “What about them, Sergeant?”

  “They didn’t see it that way. The Lady could have done the mission.”

  “I don’t give a shit what they thought. I’m the boss here. They disobeyed orders…they’re mutineers! They’re the ones who’ll get a court martial, if their stupid asses didn’t get shot off jumping into Germany.”

  This is interesting, Pola thought. A bit different than I don’t know what happened to them, as he had insisted in that first interview.

  “We know about the map, Captain,” Linker shot back.

  “What map?”

  “The map you had hidden…that you made Lieutenant Gelardi try to navigate in Sweden with.”

  “You’ve got a big mouth, Jew-boy, and you don’t know shit,” Pilcher shouted. “I don’t have to listen to any more of this. You fuck-ups are on your own…don’t expect any more help from me! Where’s my fucking subsistence money, MacLeish?”

  Calmly, Pola replied, “The allowances will be distributed when this meeting is over, as usual.”

  Pilcher knocked over a few more empty chairs as he stormed out of the day room.

  Joe Gelardi rolled his eyes and laughed. “You hear that, boys? We’re not getting any more help from him! Ain’t that something?”

  Moscone let out a hooting sound—perhaps it was his attempt at a laugh—in response to Gelardi’s comment, while his vacant expression changed not at all.

  Linker wanted to kick a few chairs of his own. “That son of a bitch had the nerve to call me ‘Jew-boy!’ Who the fuck does he think he is? He’s a fascist, just like that robber baron father of his.”

  “He thinks he’s better than us,” Morris chimed in. “That’s bullshit…and he calls us ‘morons’ and ‘fuck-ups!’ He’s the fuck-up…he killed The Lady. He ain’t nothing but a Lady killer.”

  Pola rose and walked toward Gelardi’s chair: “Gentlemen, since Captain Pilcher cannot be with us, command passes to Lieutenant Joseph Gelardi. The meeting is yours, Joseph.” Her hand brushed and perhaps lingered on his shoulder as she spoke. His hand rose to meet hers as if guided by a mind of its own. They touched for a brief second but then she withdrew, leaving Joe to rub his own shoulder self-consciously.

  Moscone repeated the hooting sound. Linker and Morris were still riled up, spewing more vitriol about the captain. They never noticed Joe and Pola’s first touch.

  Hughes remained dejected, slumped in the corner. He had not noticed the touch, either, and the wild exchange that had just transpired had only heightened his malignant fears.

  Chapter Nine

  There was something in the doorway—and this time it surely was not a big dog.

  It looked more like an angel, backlit by the bright morning sunlight so her face was in shadow. That same sunlight blazed through golden curls of windblown hair and sketched her thighs through the translucent fabric of her summer dress.

  Fred O’Hara stared at the apparition through sleep
y eyes. All night, he had heard that damn dog—Wolfgang, for lack of knowing its real name—snoring in that doorway, his perennial post. This was a damn sight better. Could he be dreaming?

  Lou DiNapoli was still curled up on his pile of straw, sleeping fitfully.

  “Hey, Louie,” Fred called softly. “Wake up. You gotta see this.”

  “Whaddya mean, Ma? Let me sleep,” DiNapoli mumbled. “I’ll do it later.”

  “Louie, you’re dreaming. Wake up.”

  “Shit, Lieutenant… that was a great dream, too. I could almost taste my Ma’s cooking. I am so fucking hungry…and them lousy Krauts took all my fucking chocolate.”

  “Well, young man, I believe your prayers have been answered. Look at the door.”

  DiNapoli rolled over and sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What? Is the fucking dog dead?”

  “Better.”

  She stepped closer, her features no longer obscured by the eclipse-like effect at the doorway. She seemed sweet and pleasant and could not have been more than 14, probably younger. Like the old man, she said nothing and carried a basket of food and drink for the airmen, setting it down in front of Lou DiNapoli, who was the closest. As she bent over, Lou was treated to a view of firm young breasts over the bodice of her dress.

  “Holy shit!” DiNapoli mumbled, transfixed by the display before him.

  “Did you order room service, Louie?”

  “Oh, man!” DiNapoli moaned. “You think she speaks English?” His mind raced past food to a different kind of hunger.

  “I don’t think so. Take it easy, there, fella…she’s jailbait, for sure.”

  “You think I care? With all the shit we’re in, you think I care about that, Lieutenant?”