“Tell you what, Fab,” Sean said. “Raise Lieutenant Pollack and have him relay through the ASO. Tell him the Jagdtigers are in-between buildings on the river, sitting on a straight line between the south end of the bridge and the front door of the church you just shot up.”
“Will do, Sarge.”
Sean could see and hear the jugs orbiting high overhead now, reflecting the bright sunlight like silvery predators gathering for the kill.
Fabiano again: “Hey, Sarge, they want to know which way the Krauts’ asses are facing. It’s east, right?”
“Affirmative.”
The Jagdtiger crews must’ve spotted the jugs, too. In a cloud of gray exhaust smoke, they began backing out of the alleys.
“Correction,” Sean said, “they’re on the move, heading east on the main drag. Really pouring the coals on, too.”
A few seconds later, Sean watched the lead jug reverse direction and begin descending in a steep spiral. The other three aircraft in the flight followed in turn.
Ah, that’s good—they’re paying attention to me. I’d cough up good money to watch what happens next…but lucky me’s gonna see it for free.
It would’ve been worth every penny. The first jug attacked with rockets, launching them when she was almost directly over Sean’s head. The salvo of four streaked into the town, each on its own seemingly aimless trajectory, all but one missing the lead tank. The one that hit—and Sean wasn’t sure if it actually did hit or if it was just a very near miss—sent some panels flying off the rear of the Jagdtiger. A shimmering mist enveloped the rear of the tank; Sean couldn’t tell if it was smoke or a spray of engine fluids.
Coolant, maybe? he wondered. Either water or glycol…whatever the Krauts are filling their radiators with these days. If it was gasoline, though, it probably should’ve lit off by now.
The Jagdtiger lurched to a stop, blocking the forward progress of her trailing sister in the narrow street. Now stalled, the trailing tank destroyer was the target of the second jug’s attack. The accuracy of her rockets was little better than the leader’s, but Sean was sure one glanced off the top of the turret, exploding between the two stationary vehicles.
Before the third jug had unleashed her rockets, both Jagdtiger crews had fled their vehicles and scattered.
I wish to hell them Kraut bastards would bail out whenever they saw a Zippo. They ain’t scared of us, but they shit their pants whenever them flyboys show up.
Wow…one of them bastards is really brewing up. Somebody got himself a decent hit with them rockets.
Fabiano yelled, “Hey, Sarge…the C.O. wants to know if we can cross the bridge now.”
“Are they across the river already?”
“He says yeah.”
“Well, kiss my fucking ass…Lieutenant Bridger came through. In that case, tell him affirmative. We’ll meet them in the town.”
He thought about adding, If none of us fall through the damn bridge, but decided to forget it. He’d already checked the conversion table in his notebook:
From what I can see through the binocs, the load sign says it’ll take forty-five thousand kilograms. That’s fifty tons. We only weigh forty…and that son of a bitching bridge don’t look damaged at all.
Hell, we’ve crossed scrawnier ones than that plenty of times.
But I better put my money where my mouth is and be first across. Don’t want none of the other guys to think I’m using them for guinea pigs.
They captured half of the German tankers in Weissenfels. They all had the red-eyed, wild look of men who hadn’t slept in days. None of them could stand still. Lined up with hands on their heads, they fidgeted like little children.
“They all got ants in their pants again,” Sean said to Lieutenant Pollack. “They’re on that fucking drug the Kraut brass hand out like candy.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s this…”
Pollack reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, screw-top metal canister. Sean could read the label easily: Pervitin.
“You ain’t taking any of that dope, are you, Lieutenant?”
“No…but I think about it every now and then. Especially after we’ve been up a couple of days straight.”
He offered the canister to Sean, whose palms-up gesture made it clear he wanted nothing to do with it.
“No way, Lieutenant. That stuff may give you all kinds of energy, but from what I seen, it makes you dumber than shit. I’m dumb enough already. Don’t need no help from some Kraut mad scientist.”
Pollack slipped the canister back into his pocket. “Suit yourself, Sergeant. But you’re certainly not dumb. Not by a long shot.” He tapped the silver bar on his collar. “You should be wearing one of these, not those stripes.”
“I’ve been through this already, sir…a bunch of times. With all due respect—and I mean that with no bullshit attached—but it’s still no, thanks.”
Chapter Twenty
Tommy hadn’t expected the ride Colonel Pruitt promised to be a B-26 Marauder bomber with a complement of four P-51 escort fighters. Each of the escorts was carrying long-range drop tanks under her wings, too. He asked himself, Where the hell are we going? China?
He was even more surprised when the B-26’s bomb bay doors opened and out dropped his crew chief, Sergeant McNulty, and two of his mechanics.
Striding over to Tommy, McNulty threw a careless salute and said, “I kinda take a dim view of this ingenuous little idea, Captain. I mean, for cryin’ out loud…ain’t they got any wrenches worth their salt here in…where the fuck are we, anyway?”
“Eschborn, Sarge,” Tommy replied. “We’re in Eschborn. It’s going to be our new home pretty soon, from what I hear.”
He was fairly sure McNulty had meant ingenious instead of ingenuous, but he let that one go.
As his two mechanics busied themselves unloading big wooden crates from the bomb bay, McNulty explained, “We brung the parts to get Eclipse and Marcy Jo back in the air. The colonel figured this was the fastest way. Got all the tooling, too. We gotta put those propellers together and get them blades all dialed in. That takes special stuff, you know. Protractors and shit.”
By the time all the boxes were stacked on four-wheeled carts the Luftwaffe had left behind, it looked like someone had crated half a P-47 for shipping.
The B-26’s pilot, a captain named Mason, walked up and asked, “You’re Captain Moon?”
When Tommy nodded, he was handed a manila envelope.
“Sealed orders for you,” the bomber pilot said. “We’ll be on our way just as soon as we all get topped off with gas.” He didn’t seem enthusiastic about it in the least.
Tommy asked, “Where the hell are we going, anyway?”
“Oh, yeah...you don’t know yet, do you? Well, let me spoil the surprise in that envelope. We’re going to Vienna, Austria.”
“Vienna?” Tommy replied, not sure if his leg was being pulled or not. “Isn’t that Russian territory now?”
“Yep,” Captain Mason replied, with the same lack of enthusiasm as before.
“Holy shit,” McNulty said. “You’re gonna go have yourself a little chat with the Russians? How about while you’re at it, you kick their asses for me for all the extra work they been causing? Oh, wait a minute. You got that banged-up knee, don’t you? Ain’t gonna be kicking much ass for a while, I guess.”
Tommy scanned the documents in the envelope and smiled uncomfortably. “According to what it says here, Sarge, that’s sort of what I’m supposed to do. But it also says here there’s a French guy, a Brit, and a translator along for the ride.”
“Yeah, they’re here,” Mason replied. “They’re asleep up in the ship.”
“Smart troops, ain’t they?” McNulty added. “Smart enough to know that when there’s nothing to do, you take a nap, because you never can tell when you’re gonna get another one. Just took one myself, as a matter of fact.”
As Tommy puzzled over the orders and their implications, McNulty told him, “Sounds like a r
eal allied effort you got going here, Captain. A guaranteed snafu. Best of luck with that shit.”
He isn’t kidding about that “best of luck” stuff, Tommy thought. These orders say I’m in charge, but I don’t think I outrank this Brit. I wonder how that’s going to work? I guess I’d better go wake them up and get acquainted.
There was no need to wake the translator; a young enlisted GI jumped down from the open bomb bay as Tommy limped to the plane. He was obviously not one of the bomber’s crew; his ground trooper’s uniform gave him away.
“You must be Corporal Mischenko,” Tommy said.
“Yes, sir, I’m Mischenko, Adam V.”
“Well, Mischenko, Adam V., I’m glad to meet you. I’m Tommy Moon.”
“Yes, sir. I figured.”
“So tell me, Corporal, how’d you get this plum assignment?”
“I’m fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, sir. We grew up speaking both those languages in our house. Neither of my parents had much English.”
Tommy noticed the SHAEF patch on Mischenko’s shoulder. “And you came all the way from Rheims for this, eh?” he asked the corporal.
“Affirmative, sir. I’m pretty glad to be getting out of there, too. It’s boring as hell at HQ, like working in some stuffy office back in Chicago. Not a lot to translate, either.”
Tommy was beginning to understand why a translator who could speak both Ukrainian and Russian might come in handy: according to his orders, the Soviet Army group that was pushing the Germans out of Austria was known as The Second Ukrainian Front.
“Well, then, Corporal…welcome aboard, wherever the hell this train is going. Can I ask you one more question, though?”
“Sure, sir.”
“Your name—Adam V. Does the V stand for Vladimir, by any chance?”
Mischenko tried not to laugh. “Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but it’s Valentino. My mom was a big fan.”
“I’m not disappointed, Adam. Not at all. Glad to have you with us.”
Nursing his wrenched knee, Tommy clambered into the bomb bay with some help from Mischenko and the mechanics. He found the other two officers listed on the orders inside the aircraft. It didn’t take much to rouse one of them from the cocoon he’d fashioned from baggage and parachute packs. The French lieutenant sat bolt upright, offered his hand, and said, in heavily accented English, “Good morning, Captain. I am Jean-Pierre Lambert, of Groupe de Chasse One Stroke Five, the Squadron Champagne.”
Noting the wings on Lambert’s jacket, Tommy asked, “What do you fly, Jean-Pierre?”
“I fly the Thunderbolt, sir. And please call me J.P. It is much easier.”
Switching to French, Tommy said, “It’s easy either way for me. What model of the P-47 do you fly?”
Stunned yet pleased that an American actually spoke French, Lambert replied, “The D model, dash Twenty-Five.”
“Ah, good. The bubble canopy version. I fly the same one with Three-Oh-First Squadron. Have you run into any Russians in your area of operations?”
“Yes, a few times. They were quite annoying, too…as if we were somehow their enemies.”
There was a stirring from another cocoon on the opposite side of the narrow cabin. A voice in French, this time with a coloration of the English upper class, said, “What’s all this mumbo-jumbo in some strange foreign tongue?”
In English, Tommy said, “Flight Leftenant Hammersmith, right?”
“Ah, at last…the King’s English,” Hammersmith replied. “So you’re Captain Moon. What’s a bloody Irishman doing on the Allied side? I thought you were all fans of the Reich.”
“I hope you’re joking, Hammersmith. I’m a Yank to the very core…make that the bloody core. Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Of course I’m joking, Captain. I meant no offense. Just trying to break the ice.”
“Fine. Consider the ice broken.”
Tommy riffled through the papers from the envelope. “Okay, Flight Leftenant Oliver Hammersmith…I’m trying to figure out what you bring to the table for this little party. Maybe you’d better fill me in.”
Oliver Hammersmith struck Tommy as one of those Brits who considered themselves superior by nature to their American cousins. Maybe it was just the accent, that final polish on a crisp and refined way of speaking that made even the simplest utterances seem like oratory from a great statesman.
Or maybe he was just one of those upper crust hangers-on who wore officer’s rank, got treated like royalty, but never seemed to actually do anything. And he wasn’t wearing any sort of aviator’s wings.
“What do I bring to the bloody table?” the Brit began. “Well, let’s see now...”
Then his mind seemed to wander off, as if answering the question held no importance to him at all.
Tommy’s patience had already worn thin. He asked, “How about we start with this: we’re on an air forces coordination project. Do you fly?”
“No, Captain, I’m neither pilot nor aircrew.”
“So flight lieutenant just means you’re in the RAF and not the British Army?”
“Correct, Captain.”
“And if you were in your army, you’d be called a captain, just like me?”
“Correct once again.”
“What exactly is your regular job, then?”
“I’m a staff officer in the logistics section of Second Tactical Air Force HQ.”
“Swell. Then how in the hell did you get picked for this assignment? This is about flying, not bean counting.”
If Hammersmith felt pressured by the question, he didn’t show it. He replied in a measured tone: “Well, I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I was on staff at the British embassy in Moscow for several years, until returning home in 1941. A minor official, mind you, in the economics section. But I suppose the high muckety-mucks thought this mission might benefit from my years of experience dealing with those ornery Soviet creatures. I imagine I can prevent some serious faux pas by less experienced negotiators.”
He paused, watching Tommy’s look of annoyance soften. Then he added, “And I’m quite sure Sir Arthur can do without me for a while.”
“Sir Arthur? You mean Coningham, the Second Tac commander?”
“The very same, Captain Moon. And one more thing…like your young translator no doubt expressed…I, too, am looking forward to getting out of the house, as it were.”
“Okay,” Tommy replied. “I’ll buy that. But one more question…we’re the same grade. Are you going to have any problem with the fact that I’m in charge?”
“Of course not, Captain Moon. These days, it seems the Yank is always in charge.”
Ignoring the sarcasm he’d just been dealt, Tommy said, “Excellent. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
“Of course we are.”
“Welcome aboard, then.” He offered his hand. Hammersmith shook it with an earnest grip.
“By the way, Oliver, do you speak Russian?”
Hammersmith chuckled as he replied, “Surprisingly little, Tommy. It is Tommy, is it not?”
Fueling the aircraft for the flight to Vienna had taken far too long, as far as Tommy was concerned. He was anxious to get on with the mission of coordination in the air between the Russian and Western Allied Air Forces in the vicinity of the German/Czech/Austrian borders, as his orders proclaimed.
Or, as he put it, keeping the damn Russians the hell out of our way.
Not that I have a clue how to do that at the moment.
But at least they were finally airborne.
The bomber pilot’s excuse for the lengthy fueling delay made sense, though: “We need to tanker fuel for the trip back so we don’t have to worry about refueling in Vienna. No telling what those Russkies are using for gasoline. Don’t want any engines crapping out over Indian country on the way home. It’s the same for the escort fighters…they’ll hold on to those drop tanks unless we get into a tangle along the way.”
Mason made a few trim adjustments before tur
ning the flying over to his co-pilot. Then he asked Tommy, “You say you’ve run into Russian fighters over Germany? What kind of range do those birds have, anyway? That’s like an eight hundred-mile round trip, not counting the gas for any fight they might get into.”
Tommy replied, “We’ve been asking ourselves that same question. It’s one of the mysteries about our Russian friends I’m supposed to unravel in great detail.”
They were thirty minutes into the two-hour flight, one that would take them four hundred miles over the southern forests of Germany before following the Danube as it threaded between the Alps and the Šumava Mountains of Czechoslovakia. They’d leveled off at an altitude of 10,000 feet, low enough not to need oxygen. A moot point, anyway; the aircraft wasn’t equipped with an oxygen system. But it was high enough to give them a chance to see intercepting aircraft a long way off. While they were still within easy range of large-caliber flak guns, at least they’d be relatively safe from smaller anti-aircraft weapons.
“Hey, Tommy,” Mason said, “that knee of yours. Are you going to be able to bail out if we get into trouble?”
“It’s really not that bad. Won’t be a problem. The only time I ever had to jump, I managed to do it with a broken arm. A wrenched knee isn’t going to stop me.”
The bomber pilot nodded, suitably impressed.
As Tommy returned to the cold and drafty aft fuselage, Oliver Hammersmith posed a question: “You know, Moon, you’ve never told us what you bring to the table for this mission. Don’t you think we deserve to know?”
“Yeah, I suppose you do,” Tommy replied. “In all honesty, though, I can’t give you a definitive answer, aside from the fact that I’ve had to deal with Russian planes harassing my flight twice.” He motioned to the Frenchman and added, “J.P. has experience in this area, too. And there’s one more thing—according to these orders, we’re supposed to compare notes with the Russians about dealing with the German jet aircraft. I guess I fit the bill there since I’ve actually shot one down.”
Our Ally, Our Enemy (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 3) Page 17
