Moon Above, Moon Below

by William Peter Grasso

  “Blue Team in position,” Tuttle reported.

  Tommy throttled back, nosed Eclipse over, and began the downhill run. He was focused on only two things: keeping the gunsight’s pipper on the truck he’d picked as the aiming point and the altimeter as it wound down like a clock running rapidly backward.

  Seven thousand…six thousand…five thousand…four thousand…three—

  “Bombs away.”

  He pulled the stick back with gentle urgency and shoved the throttle forward. A prime target in level flight now at 1500 feet, it was time to make good his escape. Somebody had to be shooting at him, even if he couldn’t see it. He banked hard right, away from the highway and the coming storm.

  There was a sharp thump…and then another, like the sound of snowballs hitting a car. Or large-caliber bullets hitting an airplane. Gingerly, Tommy moved the control stick, first left and right, feeling Eclipse respond with gentle banks, and then back and forth, feeling the nose rise and fall. All perfectly normal. Her instruments reported normal readings, too. He checked for the tell-tale whiff of smoke in the cockpit. Nothing.

  Sounded like they hit the tail, or maybe the aft fuselage. Everything feels okay—probably just tin damage.

  Tuttle and Clinchmore were about half a mile ahead. They slowed to let Tommy catch up. As he did, he could see both planes still had their bombs underwing, as he expected. But the coming storm left them little time to climb back to altitude for another dive-bombing run. “You guys got enough fifty cal for another low-level pass?” he asked.

  “Just barely,” Tuttle replied.

  “Then let’s do it. Jettison the bombs in the general direction of the Krauts first.”

  The bombs dumped, they turned back for one more attack on the German column. The low sky to the southwest had turned almost black from shafts of torrential rain. The low-hanging base of the thundercloud was a deathly gray, morphing slowly to sun-bleached white at a top so high no airman could reach it. Within and below the cloud, lightning flashed like the handiwork of vengeful gods.

  Darkness at ground level made the Germans almost impossible to see from their cockpits. The wind blew fiercely from right to left across their path of attack, constantly trying to blow the jugs off their target lines.

  But they pressed the attack in a ragged line abreast, firing burst after burst until their guns were empty. When they reached the head of the German column, driving rain turned their windshields and canopies practically opaque.

  Breaking right at five-second intervals so as not to crash blindly into each other, they turned away from the blinding storm. Within moments, the slipstream had wiped their cockpit glazing clean. It was time to head for home.

  Tommy could see Tuttle’s plane ahead to the left, but there was no sign of Clinchmore. Radio calls to him received no reply, only the crashes of static. They were in clear air now, the storm an ominous sideshow off their right wingtips, flying a circuitous path around it to get back to A-14. Climbing higher, Tommy could see for miles. But there was no sign of Herb Clinchmore.

  Sylvie waited out the storm in a farmhouse, the unexpected but nonetheless welcome guest of the elderly farmer and his wife. They offered her a bite to eat and a chance to wash up; the reddish-gray grime from the bombed-out police headquarters earlier this morning still clung to her skin and clothes. By the time the heavy rains and vicious lightning of the thunderstorm had swept through, she was as refreshed as the day’s ordeal allowed and ready to complete her walk to Combat Command Fox. It was two hours until nightfall. She felt sure she could make the journey in one.

  From the crest of a small hill, she could see one of the roads on which she’d led the ammunition convoy to CCF. Surprisingly, no troops—Boche or American—were on it, so she took it.

  I’ll make better time on the road than plodding through these thickets.

  Soon she was at the crossroad with the sabotaged signpost, the one the maquis had altered to ambush the Boche but had brought an American convoy to ruin as well. The switched signs still hadn’t been put right, despite that American lieutenant’s assurances he’d get it done.

  Americans…they have such short memories, if any at all.

  She was still a few hundred yards from the edge of the forest when a GI popped up from the high grass as if out of nowhere, pointing a rifle in her face while demanding the password.

  “I have no idea what your silly password is,” Sylvie replied. “I am here to see Colonel Abrams. I was here just last night, in fact, guiding your trucks to you. Please, take me to your colonel.”

  A sergeant materialized from a well-camouflaged hide. “I remember her,” he told the rifleman. “She was the jane with the bicycle. What brings you back to these parts, lady?”

  “I have information for Colonel Abrams.”

  “What’s your name, miss?”

  “My name is Sylvie Bergerac. Madame Sylvie Bergerac.”

  “Keep her here a minute,” the sergeant told his trooper. Then he vanished back into their hide. She could hear the whir of a field telephone being cranked and then his muffled voice in conversation.

  In a few moments, the sergeant reappeared. “Go ahead, Bickerman,” he said. “Take the lady to the CP. Then get your sorry ass right back here on the double.”

  As Sylvie and her escort walked past the outpost, she was startled to see it contained two more GIs manning a machine gun. Although this spot had been in her field of view the last few minutes, she’d been oblivious to the outpost’s presence.

  They’re learning, she told herself. Flawless concealment.

  Inside CCF’s perimeter now, they walked through Baker Company’s position. Sylvie came face to face with Sean Moon. “If it ain’t our favorite little French lady,” he said. “You just can’t stay away, can you? Seen my brother?”

  “I haven’t seen much of anything since yesterday.”

  “Well, if you do, tell him I said to go fuck himself.”

  Sylvie replied, “I think not, Sergeant Moon. It would sound so much better coming from you.”

  At the CP, Colonel Abrams was surprised and delighted to see her. “Have you been inside Gacé, madame?” he asked.

  She told him of her odyssey. He was amazed at how matter-of-fact her manner was as she listed the details.

  Abrams asked, “Can you tell us the German strength and disposition inside the town?”

  “Of course. There can’t be more than two or three companies of infantry left. Tanks number no more than six.”

  “Maybe that’s why the aerial photos showed so little,” Abrams said. “There’s just not much to show.”

  “I can also tell you of the Boche at Nonant-le-Pin, if that will help.”

  When she told him that village contained nothing but a company of third-rate infantry, Abrams sent a staff officer running to the radio to relay that intel to 4th Armored.

  “Not sure why, but they’ve been poking around Nonant for hours,” the colonel said. “Now maybe they can just steamroll the place and get their tails up here. Once again, Madame Bergerac, your help has been invaluable. What are your plans now?”

  “I’d like to get back to Alençon, if I could, mon colonel.

  “Consider it done. We’ve got an ambulance headed down there within the hour. You’re welcome to ride along.”

  “Thank you, mon colonel. But if I may—and I know I’ve asked this before—may I ask you again to be merciful with the town of Gacé?”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “Yes…among others.”

  “I give you my word, Madame Bergerac. My men will be as merciful as the Germans permit.”

  “That is all I ask, mon colonel.”

  At an RAF airfield just south of Caen, the senior officers had just sat down to supper in their elegant chateau when an agitated intelligence officer burst into the dining room. “Sir,” he addressed the group captain, “excuse the intrusion, but Taffy Flight reports attacking an armored unit in the vicinity of Gacé that identified itself on
the wireless as a Yank unit.”

  “And what is your assessment of that claim, Leftenant?” the group captain asked before taking another sip of wine.

  “We feel it’s just another German ruse, sir, especially considering how far it is beyond Monty’s stop line. A very well-executed one, though.”

  “Was Taffy’s attack a success?”

  “A brilliant success, sir. Numerous armored vehicles destroyed. One Typhoon was lost, unfortunately, shot down by vicious flak.”

  “Ahh, bad luck,” the group captain said. As he sliced into his steak, the product of freshly butchered cattle his officers’ mess had appropriated from a nearby farm, he added, “Well-executed ruse or not, Leftenant, it wasn’t good enough to fool this command. Tell your shop to keep up the good work.” He then told Taffy Flight’s squadron leader, “And give your boys a hearty good show, as well, Oliver.”

  When the intelligence officer was almost to the door, the group captain called after him. “We are planning to hit those faux Yanks again, are we not, Leftenant?”

  “Yes, sir. As soon as possible.”

  Chapter Thirty

  ALLIED GROUND FORCES DIRECTIVE

  FROM:

  MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER, ALLIED GROUND FORCES

  DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

  14 AUG 44/1900 HRS

  TO:

  BRADLEY--COMMANDER, 12TH ARMY GROUP

  COPY (FOR INFO):

  SHAEF (EISENHOWER); HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY; DEMPSEY--2ND BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY; CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC; BRERETON--9TH AIR FORCE

  RE YOUR STATUS REPORT OF 1800/14 AUG, YOU ARE AGAIN REMINDED TO HOLD YOUR UNITS ALONG THE DESIGNATED FLERS-ARGENTAN LINE. 21ST ARMY GROUP CONTINUES ITS APPROACH TO THAT LINE FROM THE NORTH AND WILL BE IN POSITION WITHIN 48 HOURS TO COMPLETE THE ENCIRCLEMENT OF GERMAN 7th ARMY.

  DO NOT--REPEAT, DO NOT--MOVE NORTH OF THE LINE DESIGNATED FOR YOU. THE CHANCES FOR FRATRICIDE COMMITTED BY YOUR LESS BATTLE-HARDENED TROOPS WHEN EXECUTING A PINCER MOVEMENT REMAINS A GREAT RISK WITHIN THIS COMMAND.

  SIGNED,

  MONTGOMERY

  General Omar Bradley, 12th Army Group Commander, threw down the directive from Montgomery in disgust. “Bullshit,” he said to his chief of staff. “Patton’s just told us Monty’s boys aren’t even past Falaise yet, so forty-eight hours, my sweet ass. The Germans will be long gone by then, and we’re sitting here with our thumbs up our asses on this damn line of his, waiting for him to play the big hero.”

  He tried to say out loud that last sentence in Monty’s directive with all the mocking inflection of a British accent he could muster, but as he got to fratricide by your less battle-hardened troops, the words dissolved on his tongue like a bitter pill.

  “Bullshit,” Bradley repeated. “Absolute bullshit. Who the hell does he think he is? If Ike wasn’t so scared shitless of Winston Churchill, none of this would be happening.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The thunderstorm had slowed 4th Armored to a crawl on the highway to Nonant-le-Pin, delaying their arrival on its outskirts until twilight. Armed with the intelligence Sylvie had provided Colonel Abrams, though, taking the village was breathtakingly easy. A single Sherman rolled down the deserted and still rain-slicked main street, only to be confronted by a kübelwagen that had raced up in front of a church. When they saw the tank before them, the three German soldiers in the vehicle hesitated for a moment, as if not quite sure what to do next, and then lit the crude gasoline bomb they’d made from a wine bottle. The GIs in the tank were far more certain what to do: they riddled the kübelwagen with the bow-mounted .30-caliber machine gun until the three occupants were dead and their vehicle turned into a mighty bonfire.

  When the squad of GI infantrymen accompanying the Sherman found the doors of the church barred from the outside, they broke those doors open, liberating the townspeople inside who’d been seconds from incineration. It didn’t take much deduction to know the flaming wine bottle full of gasoline was meant to torch the church and its occupants.

  In short order, the lead element of 4th Armored rounded up the rest of the hundred-odd Germans in the village, who were all too eager to surrender. The German commander—a hauptmann whose attempts to sneer at his captors were foiled by the facial tremors of one scared for his life—was asked by an American major why his men were trying to burn civilians alive.

  His reply: “They must be made to pay for dishonoring my brave soldiers.”

  The American major looked at the sorry collection of terrified teenagers and old men in Wehrmacht uniforms being herded away to a POW collection pen. “Your men aren’t brave,” he told the hauptmann, “they’re just lost sheep being led around by murdering pieces of shit like you.”

  By the time General Wood’s jeep made it to the village center, it was nearly dark. “We’ll stay here for the night,” he told his staff. “Tell CC Fox to hang on until morning.”

  Tommy felt nothing but defeat as he and Tuttle touched down at A-14. Skirting the thunderstorm to get home had given him too much time to dwell on the day’s events: I’ve lost two of my guys in one day. Do I even know what the hell I’m doing as a flight leader?

  Still, a voice in his head was telling him, It’s not your fault. It wasn’t you who got target fixated and flew Rider’s plane into the ground. He did that all by himself. And Clinchmore…well, you’ve got no idea what happened to him yet.

  I don’t think the storm got him, though. Me and Jimmy came through it okay. Still, how’d he go down without us knowing?

  His dejection turned to elation and then puzzlement as he and Tuttle taxied past Clinchmore’s plane, safe and perfectly intact on the ramp. Eclipse’s prop had barely stopped spinning when Tommy asked Sergeant McNulty, “Lieutenant Clinchmore…how long has he been back?”

  McNulty, his eagle eyes scanning Tommy’s airplane, didn’t answer the question. Instead, he puffed up with mock indignation and asked, “Why the hell has my airplane got holes in its tail, Lieutenant? Big ones, too, dammit. You’re gonna have my tin-peckers up all night again, ain’t you?”

  “Yeah, real sorry about that. Now how about answering my question about Lieutenant Clinchmore?”

  “He’s been back about twenty minutes, give or take, sir.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He walked away on his own two shaky legs. I guess that makes him okay.”

  McNulty called to the mechanic working in the cockpit of Clinchmore’s ship. “What do you think, Sparky…anything wrong over there?”

  Sparky—the nickname given to all the squadron’s radio technicians—replied, “Ain’t a damn thing wrong with this set, Sarge. It’s working perfectly. I’m talking to ground stations five miles from here, for cryin’ out loud. Airborne, he could’ve worked stations fifty or sixty miles away, easy.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tommy said. “Clinchmore said there was something wrong with his radio?”

  “I don’t know none of the perpendiculars, Lieutenant…I mean, I ain’t his crew chief, am I?—but he did collude that his radio wasn’t working up to speculation.

  That’s a record, even for McNulty, Tommy told himself. Three abuses of the King’s English in one sentence. But malaprops aside, what his crew chief had just divulged was interesting fare.

  Colonel Pruitt, the squadron C.O., thought it interesting, too. He told Tommy, “I think you’d better remind your pilots that there are SOPs you follow when your radio craps out. Cutting and running isn’t one of them. Get to the bottom of what happened and advise me.”

  “Will do, sir,” Tommy replied, “as soon as I find him.”

  Herb Clinchmore hadn’t even bothered to debrief once back at A-14. Tommy retraced his movements from Operations to his quarters, a tent Clinchmore shared with three other pilots. Only one of them was there. He said his tentmates had left for Alençon in a jeep five minutes before.

  That’s convenient, Tommy thought, because that’s where I’m headed, too.<
br />
  The streets of Alençon were crowded with GIs looking for alcohol and women. The ambulance driver followed Sylvie’s directions, snaking through the milling throngs until she told him to halt in front of Papa’s House. He knew the place well. He’d frequented it himself.

  “You live here, ma’am?” he asked.

  “That’s not so surprising, is it, Private? Considering the man everyone calls Papa is my actual father.”

  “Well…it’s just…just that—”

  “Just what, Private? That it’s a whorehouse?”

  Even in the darkness she could tell he was blushing. She said goodbye with a chaste kiss on his cheek and stepped from the ambulance. The line of GIs awaiting admittance parted like the Red Sea for her entrance.

  She went first to the back room that was Papa’s office. After kisses of welcome, her father wrapped her in his arms and said, “Well, my prodigal daughter returns once again, praise God. You look a bit tattered, little girl, like you’ve been off playing war again. Did you win it single-handedly this time, too?”

  “Not quite, Papa.” She decided to spare him the details of her brief imprisonment and lucky escapes for now. Instead, she asked, “Have you seen my husband?”

  Papa rummaged through a desk drawer. When he found what he was looking for, he handed it to her, saying, “Here…he left you a note.”

  Some women would have burst into tears reading what Bernard had written. Sylvie just smiled, breathed a sigh of relief, and stuffed the note in the pocket of her skirt.

  “My husband, along with all the other young men of the maquis, has been called into the French Army,” she said. “We knew that was coming from the day de Gaulle started referring to the Resistance as the French Forces of the Interior. He’ll be leaving in the morning for induction at Le Mans.”