Rush to Glory

by Robert L Hecker

  “Too bad,” Hal said. “I love ham.”

  Cossel stepped down and took off his trench coat and jacket. “Boost me up again. I’m gonna get us a ham.”

  “What good would it do? We don’t have any place to cook.”

  “The barracks stoves. I know where there’s a frying pan.”

  Hal made his stirrup again and hefted Cossel up as high as he could. Cossel jiggled the transom all the way open and wormed his way through. Hal heard him drop to the floor. He waited quietly in the semi-darkness of the corridor, wishing he had kept his mouth shut. What the hell was he doing here, waiting anxiously like a criminal in a dark hallway? In his entire life, he had never taken so much as a postage stamp. How could he be doing this? It wasn’t just his way of life that the war had turned upside down; other unsuspected forces had been loosed within him. It was an unsettling sensation. The rest of it: the flying, the Army life had been strange enough, but that strangeness had been expected. This was different. Nothing in his life had prepared him to be in this darkened hallway like a criminal, his senses filled with the sounds, the odors of a different world. He didn’t like it. He did not like the uncertainty. He preferred his life unfold in an orderly sequence of events; he liked to know what to expect and why. This was stupid. What would happen if they were caught?

  But it was exciting. His heart was thumping away like The Anvil Chorus. This sure as hell was something he would never have done in Fairview.

  There was a faint rap on the other side of the door, and he heard Cossel’s cautious voice, “Bailey?”

  “Yeah.” Hal eased away from the wall. His forehead was damp with sweat.

  “Catch,” Cossel said, and Hal looked up just in time to see a white bundle come flying through the open transom. He stepped forward and caught it before it could hit the floor. Cossel had lifted one of the hams from the barrel of brine and wrapped it in a white dishcloth. Hal was trying to figure a way of concealing the bulky white object when another swaddled ham came flying through the transom. Hal caught the second bundle and glanced back toward the club doorway. No one in sight. Then Cossel wiggled through the open transom and dropped heavily to the floor. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Cossel was shrugging into his trench coat when light spilled from the club doorway. Hal glanced back. Luke, Colonel Sutton, Betty Axley, and Crystal Buehler were coming out. They were talking, and in the dim light, they had not yet seen Hal or Cossel. But it was too late to run.

  Hal thrust one of the hams at Cossel, and they jammed them up under their trench coats. The hams made suspicious bulges over their stomachs, but there was no helping that. As the officers passed, Hal and Cossel stiffened to attention. Only Betty Axley glanced at them. Her eyes flickered in recognition, but she continued listening to the colonel, who was saying something about the advantages of daylight bombing.

  As the group moved off down the hallway, Hal and Cossel relaxed. Suddenly, Luke’s steps faltered, and he almost stopped. Then Crystal said something and laughed as she slipped her arm under his, and they continued down the hall. Just before the door closed behind them, Hal saw Crystal look back, the trace of an amused smile on her face.

  “Damn good thing, the colonel wasn’t alone,” Cossel said, and Hal nodded, though he would almost rather have been caught than to have seen Crystal leave with Luke.

  In the barracks, they turned the light on over one of the dully glowing stoves. Cossel gave Hal a bayonet to cut the ham while he went to look for the frying pan, Hal hid one of the hams behind his footlocker and cut several slices off the other.

  Cossel came back with the pan and placed it on the stove. They moved quietly, and men in their bunks voiced only a few sleepy grumbles. They were used to community life.

  Then Cossel dropped a piece of ham into the pan, and it began to sizzle. The pungent odor of frying ham filled the long room, and somebody said, “Hey! I smell ham.”

  “You’re crazy,” Cossel said with a laugh. “Go back to sleep.”

  “The hell I will.”

  A disheveled, skinny fellow dressed in long johns swung his legs over the edge of his upper bunk and dropped to the floor. He pulled on a pair of fleece-lined flying boots and slopped over to the stove. He peered into the frying pan and sniffed. “By damn,” he said. “It is ham. Where’d you get it?”

  “Don’t ask,” Cossel answered. “Want some?”

  “Christ, yes. I haven’t had ham since the ticks jumped off’n the dog.”

  Everyone in the barracks was awake now, and they converged on the makeshift kitchen. Before all appetites were satisfied, Hal had carved up all of one ham and most of the other. It was the first time in weeks that the flying crews had tasted good meat, and they ate greedily.

  “The quartermasters are all paddlefeet, so they get first pick,” the thin-faced fellow explained to Hal. “If we get something good, they eat at our mess hall. When they get ham or something, we can’t get within a mile of their place.”

  “Maybe you can’t,” Cossel said. “But Jimmy Valentine here and I can.”

  Cossel forked a slice of ham into his mouth and grinned at Hal, and, for the first time, Hal felt as though he was one of them. Then he thought of O’Reilly and Fox, and the feeling of camaraderie faded. They might approve of the raid. They would probably applaud it as a daring act of courage in the face of the enemy. But that didn’t mean they would approve of Luke Bailey’s brother.

  For some reason, he found that he wanted O’Reilly’s approval. But it wasn’t just him. Everyone seemed to want O’Reilly’s approval. And for what? The earth would still turn with or without O’Reilly. The war would go on; the missions would be flown; the enemy fighters would attack just the same; the flak would come just the same. So why should he care what O’Reilly thought? Why should he care what any of them thought?

  But later, lying in his bunk in the darkness, he realized that he did care. He wanted the approval of the combat crews. And he wanted the approval of his brother. And that would not come easily.

  The odor of frying ham was still in Hal’s nostrils when he went to sleep.

  Laughter brought him awake. Fox and a blonde English girl made their way unsteadily down the darkened aisle between the bunks, laughing whenever they stumbled. By the time they arrived at Fox’s bunk, everyone in the barracks was awake.

  “For Christ sake, Fox,” someone said. “Do you have to wake up the whole damn place?”

  “Up your ass!” Fox replied matter-of-factly. They stopped next to his Fox’s bunk, and Fox said, “Come on, honey, let’s get your clothes off.”

  Hal’s bunk was next to Fox’s, and he watched Fox fumble with the buttons on the girl’s dress in the faint light of a distant bare bulb. The girl giggled. “’ere, dovey. Don’t rip it. I ain’t got another.”

  Suddenly it was quiet, the whisper of clothing, the girl’s soft giggles, and Fox’s harsh breathing the only sounds. It was as though everyone was holding his breath.

  The girl’s nude body was a pale ghost as she started to climb into the lower bunk. “Hey, baby,” Fox said, pulling her back, “Not that one. Up on top.”

  The girl laughed. “Oh, righto.” She hooked her arms over the top of the bed, and her legs swung wildly as she fought for purchase. Fox laughed and put both hands on her rump and shoved. She yelped and clawed for support, then toppled onto the rough Army blanket.

  “Ow,” she said. “It’s bloody scratchy.”

  “Pull it down. Use the sheet,” Fox told her, and, while he finished flinging his clothes off, the girl scrambled on her hands and knees, folding down the blanket.

  Fox dropped his OD-colored shorts on the floor and said, “Spread your legs, baby. Here comes daddy.” He swung his nude body up and into the bed beside the girl with practiced ease. Fox was not a man to waste time. He grasped the girl’s ankles in his hands and forced he
r legs up in a wide V. The girl did not protest. He crouched between her legs and pushed his hips forward. “Put it in,” he commanded, and a moment later, there was the sound of a sharp intake of breath followed by a rhythmic slap of flesh against flesh.

  Someone cleared his throat, the sound sharp in the silence. “Hey Fox,” he called. “Save some for me.”

  “Go to hell, you horny bastard,” Fox panted, and several men snickered.

  “Hey, Fox,” a voice called. “You should keep in better shape. You sound like Sidney Greenstreet.”

  Without breaking his rhythm, Fox said, “I’m in a hell of a lot better shape right now than you are.”

  Someone else laughed, and the spell was broken. Fox began to receive a steady stream of suggestions and advice, but he was concentrating on his work, and he did not bother to answer. The men gradually stopped calling and settled back quietly, some propped up on one elbow to watch the pale bodies move in the dim light. Fox had let go of the moaning girl’s legs and was now lying flat on top of her, his bare behind rising and falling with steady, determined regularity, the sounds as timeless as the rhythm, the odor of sex as intense as it was faint.

  Hal hated those sounds. When he was very young, four or five, maybe, he had awakened in the night and walked into his parents’ bedroom to ask for a drink of water, and he had heard the faint slap of flesh on flesh and his mother’s moaning. Seeing his father moving with such violence on top of his mother, he had thought they were fighting, and he had begun to cry. His father had said, “Christ!” and stopped immediately, and his mother had quickly slipped out of bed and had come to comfort him, her breasts swaying strangely on her body that he had never seen naked. After that, he had never gone back to his parents’ bedroom in the night. He did not want to see his mother and father naked and struggling with each other like animals. And later, when he understood what it was that he had seen, he still hated to think of his mother lying beneath his father, who was a big man like Luke and must have been brutal in his lovemaking.

  Luke. Could Luke be otherwise? Could he be any less ruthless in satisfying his lust with the body of a woman than he was in satisfying his desire for power? A man like Luke would have to demonstrate mastery by savagely twisting soft flesh and driving himself into the girl with all his strength. If the girl protested, he would only laugh and force her legs farther apart so that he could be even more brutal. For the love of God, what was there that made women want men like that? His mother certainly must have seen this ruthless streak in his father, his determination to prove his masculinity. So why had she married him? A gentle, absurdly sweet and delicate woman, why had she married him? And why had that shy, beautiful Susan given herself to his brother?

  Fox abruptly stopped, groaned, and lay panting. “Jesus,” he gasped. “That was good.”

  After a moment, Fox lifted his head, and there was the sound of a hand slapping smooth flesh. “Ah right, doll baby,” he said. “Now, you can take care’a the rest of these horny bastards.”

  “The rest of ’em,” the girl said belligerently. “I thought I was your girl.”

  “Sure, sure, baby. But they’re getting shot up for your bloody island too. Tomorrow some of them are going to be dead. The least you limeys can do is make us die happy.”

  “All right, dovey,” the girl said. “Where do I begin?” She sat up and swung one leg over the side of the bunk, and Fox dragged her back. “God-damn-it,” he said. “You’re too damn eager. You know how many guys there are in here?”

  “No,” she giggled. “Does it matter?”

  “You’re nuts,” Fox said. “If you’ve got that much left, I’ll take some more.”

  When Hal managed to go to sleep, the room was still charged with tension. The most surprising thing to Hal was that no one had told Fox to get out. What he did was his own business. Fox had been right about one thing. Tomorrow some of them would probably be dead. In a week, they might all be dead.

  CHAPTER 6

  A T/Sgt Hal did not know came in and shook the lead and deputy lead crews awake at 0200. O’Reilly, Cossel, and Hal dressed silently by the harsh light of naked bulbs, hurrying to shield their sleep-warm bodies from the damp cold. Fox’s girl was still asleep in his bunk when the big co-pilot swung to the floor with a groan and fumbled for his flight clothing.

  Hal glanced at Schultz’s bunk. The bombardier’s eyes were open but staring at nothing. Since he was not on a lead crew, he could sleep another hour if he could sleep at all.

  As Hal shrugged on his B-3 jacket, Cossel said, “Take your shave kit with you. And your good shoes.”

  Hal stared at him. “My shoes?” He was wearing his GI shoes, and he would pick up his fleece-lined flight boots at the supply room. So, what was Cossel talking about?

  “Thorpewood gets fogged in sometimes,” Cossel explained. “We might not get back here for days. And if we land at a British base, we might get invited to a party.”

  Following the navigator’s example, Hal shoved his oxfords and his shave kit in his briefcase. He would transfer them to his A-3 equipment bag when he picked it up in the supply room.

  Outside, the night was cool and still. For what seemed like the first time since Hal had been in England, the sky was free of overcast, the night spangled with stars. A thin crescent moon was impaled on a dark line of trees. The exhaust of the waiting 6 X 6 truck breathed a white plume into the chill air. The eight officers of the squadron lead and deputy lead ships carrying their briefcases, climbed stiffly into the back of the truck, and hunched on the hard benches with their hands in their pockets while they rode the short distance to the mess hall.

  At the mess hall, Hal noticed that Fox was carrying a Colt .45 in a shoulder holster under his jacket. Like all the flying officers, Hal too had been issued a .45, but he had chosen to leave it in his footlocker. In the early days, everyone had worn them. Until recently, bombardiers had been required to carry them so that, if shot down, they could put a few rounds into the top-secret Norden bombsight. Airmen who had tried to use their weapon after being shot down found that they provided little protection against a squad of German soldiers and, in fact, tended to get oneself shot, so most airmen had given up carrying them on missions. There was some evidence, however, that German civilians had murdered downed airmen. They’d probably wished for their .45s to hold off the civilians until the soldiers arrived. Maybe Fox was smart to wear his if it didn’t get him killed.

  After a breakfast of scrambled powdered eggs and sausages, the officers of all lead and deputy lead crews assembled in the operations room at headquarters.

  It was a smallish room, partitioned from one end of a Quonset hut, ineffectively lighted with low-wattage bulbs in porcelain reflectors. Various maps were pinned on the walls. Two Teletype machines occasionally chattered “frag” orders or other communications from Wing Headquarters in Peterborough.

  Twenty-four flying officers were crowding the small room as well as intelligence officers, briefing officers, and squadron commanders. A few of the officers, like Fox, wore Colt .45s in shoulder holsters. Most concentrated on a large map that was spread out in the middle of the room on a round table covered in green felt. Hal wasn’t sure what his role in the briefing should be, so he stood back to watch the way the group leads, and the other squadron leads and deputy leads conducted themselves.

  Luke was there, with his cigar and his fifty-mission hat, talking to Colonel Sutton. If he saw Hal, he chose to ignore him. When the door closed behind the last crewmen to arrive, the colonel asked for their attention and began reading aloud from the Teletyped mission directive. Their mission was to hit submarine pens at Emden, which was located at the mouth of the Ems River near the border of Germany and Holland. When the colonel read their destination, the men looked at each other and grinned. A milk run.

  Colonel Sutton continued reading the TWX, giving their group position in the Div
ision column, altitudes to fly, weather expected at the target, and the myriad details necessary to make up a mission. In this instance, there were five groups involved for a total of one-hundred-eighty bombers. Other groups of the Eighth Air Force would be hitting other targets.

  Then the officers separated into smaller groups. The navigators went into an adjacent room to work out their courses. Fox and O’Reilly remained in the center of the room for the pilots’ briefing during which they were provided with charts marked with the group’s route to and from the target, the Initial Point, expected flak areas, enemy fighter bases and types of aircraft and other mission data. Rice paper ‘flimsies’ contained formation diagrams, formation times, code words, call signs, and the numbers and flight positions of other groups.

  While the pilots were briefed, Hal and the other lead bombardiers studied maps and aerial photographs of the target area. They were expected to memorize all the significant landmarks for miles around the target so that if only a glimpse of the ground could be obtained through obscuring clouds, they could instantly identify landmarks and from them determine the course and distance to the obscured target.

  At 0400, the meeting broke up, and everyone walked the few yards to the main briefing room for the general crew briefing. The big room was already crowded, and the buzz of voices died when the lead crews walked in and made their way to reserved benches near the front. The men anxiously searched the faces of the lead officers for a clue as to the severity of the mission, but the leads keep their expressions blank as though keeping their secret was a vital rule in a child’s game.

  The dais across the front of the room held six chairs and a speaker’s lectern. Behind the dais, the large wall map was covered by a rolled-down piece of oilcloth like a window shade to conceal the target and the mission route. An MP stood at parade rest on the dais in front of the map to maintain the security of the route.

  On either side of the room, large blackboards were painted with white ‘T’s’ representing airplanes’ positions in formation. The ‘T’s’ were numbered with chalk to indicate individual positions in the thirty-six-plane group. Hal saw the number of O’Reilly’s ship chalked in above the ‘T’ at the head of the High Squadron. That was good. He’d heard that the low squadron usually caught the most flak. He sat down next to Fox and O’Reilly on one of the front benches.