by Tom Young
He was like a rat stowed away on a ship, always running and hiding. Constantly looking for advantage: a scrap of food, a sip of water. Just trying to hang on and survive until the ship sails into port.
25
Cold Mercy
Wilhelm and the American skirted the forest, stopping every half mile or so to estimate their distance from the rail yard. At several points, they crept through the trees to view the set of railroad tracks. The two men hid in underbrush, just meters from the railroad ties, until they felt sure that nothing and no one was coming down the tracks. They stole across the tracks, up a dirt embankment, and into the trees on the other side. Wilhelm hoped they could continue their progress toward friendly forces once clear of the rail network that led away from the marshaling yard.
As the day wore on, the air grew colder, adding to their misery. Clouds gathered and joined into a solid overcast. Wilhelm’s stomach hurt for want of food. With the approach of winter, he knew their luck or their tactics would have to change. Cold and hunger would force them to take bigger and bigger chances just to stay alive. The two men trudged silently; they barely had the energy to place one foot in front of the other, let alone to talk.
Mist drifted from the overcast, and they slogged through a drizzle that turned to a light rain. A gentle wooded slope led down to a narrow stream. There, the Yank stopped to drink. He kneeled by the water, opened his pack, and took out a water flask. Dipped it into the stream, drank, passed it to Wilhelm. Wilhelm drank and refilled the container.
They continued their forest trek through the rain, which grew steady. Wilhelm had hoped walking might warm him some, but he only grew colder. The pine needles and juniper boughs took on a crystalline sheen; the rain was beginning to freeze.
This will end soon, Wilhelm thought. It might not end well, but it must surely end soon. In his cold, glazed purgatory, Wilhelm began to consider a new plan. Perhaps he could turn himself in and say he’d been wandering after taking a blow on the head: Debris had struck him during the bombing of the U-boat bunker and he’d traveled in a daze.
Surely, the navy, the government, would understand. Then he could rest, sleep in a warm bed. Yes, when they came to another road or village, he would take leave of this Yank and turn himself in.
The rational part of his mind brought him up short. Every good sailor knew the signs of hypothermia, and one of them was altered judgment. Men freezing to death had been known to remove their coats and gloves as their core temperature dropped and fouled their thinking.
Your brain, Wilhelm told himself, has run aground. If you turn yourself in, the SS or Gestapo will execute you. Publicly, shamefully, and painfully. You have no choice but to press on, Wilhelm realized. And you are a submariner; you have faced discomfort before.
A few meters ahead, the pilot stopped. He turned to Wilhelm and, with his fingers outspread, motioned for a halt. Then the Yank pressed a finger to his lips for silence.
Deeper in the forest, perhaps thirty meters away, Wilhelm saw the reason for his partner’s behavior. Some sort of structure lay among the trees, its lines clearly man-made.
A bunker? No, a bunker would be better hidden, and it would not have lengths of sheet metal built at right angles. One flat surface looked at least six meters long with . . . guns.
There were two guns pointing out into the woods. The long, heavy barrels of an air-cooled automatic weapon.
The American took a tentative step forward. Then another, and another. Wilhelm followed close behind. As the object came into better view, Wilhelm recognized it as a B-24 Liberator.
Or part of a Liberator: Wilhelm could make out a section of the fuselage, along with the distinctive H-shaped tail with its twin rudders at either side. Just the back half of the airplane. Jagged metal and frayed cables hung where the airplane had ripped apart. No sign of wings, engines, or a nose section anywhere.
“This is a B—” the Yank began.
“Twenty-four. This airplane I know,” Wilhelm interrupted. “You have a version of it modified for hunting U-boats.”
Rain droplets pattered on the aluminum skin. A faded white star against a blue background marked the Liberator as a U.S. aircraft. Bullet holes across the fuselage served as mute evidence of the aerial battle that had downed the plane. Decaying fallen leaves covered part of the horizontal section of the tail; this wreckage had lain here for a while. Perhaps the bomber had targeted the rail yard many months ago.
The two fugitives approached the Liberator’s remains. The aviator reached the wreckage first. Taking care not to get cut, the Yank placed a hand on the sharp, ripped aluminum where the airplane had torn open, and he looked inside. Shook his head sadly.
“Was ist das?” Wilhelm asked.
“Somebody didn’t get out,” the flier answered in English.
Wilhelm caught up with the Yank pilot at the opening to the fuselage. He expected to see a putrefying corpse, but instead he saw bones. A skull lay beside a yellow oxygen bottle. A collarbone rested a meter away from the skull. A rib cage was visible inside a torn flying suit, and next to the suit lay a shearling jacket. Dry leaves littered the floor; apparently, wind had blown them inside during the long months since this aircraft came to grief.
“Animals must have scattered the bones,” Wilhelm said.
The aviator said nothing. He stood very still and stared at the disassembled skeleton. After a minute, he ducked inside the fuselage and began searching. He unzipped the flying suit and examined the ribs. Scanned the floor. Moved aft to the gunner’s station in the tail.
“What are you looking for?” Wilhelm asked.
“His dog tags. I’m sure he’s still listed as missing. His family needs to know.”
“Dog tags”? Oh, yes, Wilhelm thought. Identification tags.
The American kneeled at the gunner’s station. Reached down and picked up a leather glove. Tiny bones tumbled out of it and rattled onto the floor.
“Damn it,” the Yank muttered. He dropped the glove.
“I’ll help you look,” Wilhelm said. He tried not to think about what destruction this Liberator might have wrought on his country. The airman whose bones lay at his feet had been another fighting man just doing his job.
Wilhelm squatted and ran his eyes across the wires and tubing, the expended brass cartridges, and the mangled sheet metal. After a few minutes of searching, he noticed a corroded chain underneath the leaves. He picked up the chain with thumb and forefinger, and as he lifted it, two metal tags clanked together.
“I found them,” Wilhelm said. “They look different than ours.”
He took hold of one of the tags. Exposure to the elements had discolored it, but he could still read the lettering:
CARLTON S. MEADE
17497345 T43
JANET R. MEADE
834 MAPLE HILL DR
KNOXVILLE, TENN
“Give me that,” the American said. “Now.” Held out his hand.
“Sorry, I—”
Wilhelm handed over the identification tags. The flier read them and placed them in his pocket. Gazed up at the ceiling of the aircraft as if he could look through it—at something much farther away. Wilhelm wondered if the Yank was imagining the aerial combat that took down the Liberator.
“Are you all right?” Wilhelm asked.
The American cut his eyes at Wilhelm. In that instant, they seemed made of flint. No warmth. The eyes of an enemy instead of a friend. The Yank let a long moment pass without comment.
“This kind of thing is a little close to me right now,” the pilot said finally.
“Quite understandable. I’m sorry you had to see this.”
The American placed his hands on his hips, looked around at the bones, the wiring, the flying suit.
“No, I’m glad. Janet Meade won’t have to wonder for fifty years what happened to her tail gunner husband.”
A mercy, Wilhelm thought, albeit a cold one. To have proof positive of a loved one’s fate.
The wives, s
weethearts, and parents of lost submariners never got back such an item. No one could reach into a steel tomb at a thousand fathoms and retrieve personal effects. Undoubtedly, some wives of lost U-boat men held out irrational hope that their husbands had escaped the sinking. Had drifted to the Azores or the Bahamas. Had ridden flotsam to salvation and would someday recover and return.
The Yank started looking through the wreckage again. He leaned into the tail gunner’s compartment, reached down, and said, “Here it is.” Hoisted an unopened parachute.
“Why didn’t he use that?” Wilhelm asked.
The aviator sighed hard. “Any number of reasons,” he said. “He might have been dead before the airplane came apart. Or the g-forces might have pinned him in place after the tail broke away.” The American twirled his finger to illustrate a tail section spinning to the ground. “If they got hit up at twenty thousand feet or so, the other half of this plane could have hit the ground miles from here.”
“You sound as if you have seen this.”
The bomber pilot rolled his eyes. “More than I care to remember,” he said.
The Yank pulled the rip cord, and a mass of white silk tumbled out. He sat on a crossbrace, reached into a pocket, and opened his folding knife. Began cutting the lines that attached the silk to the parachute harness.
“I hate to take this,” the Yank said, “but it will help keep us warm.”
He worked at the silk for a few minutes and eventually separated the fabric from the cords and straps. Then he split the cloth down the middle and rolled the two halves into tight bundles of cloth. Cut several lengths of parachute cord and secured the bundles with the cord. Placed them in his makeshift pack.
The pilot turned his attention back to the dead flier’s remains. He kneeled beside the shearling jacket and flying suit, and he lifted—very gingerly—the jacket away from the suit. For a moment, he seemed to consider taking the jacket, but then he set it aside. Without asking, Wilhelm understood why: Both he and the American already had coats—and this United States–issued jacket would make it hard to blend in with the populace.
A holster and web belt had lain hidden under the jacket. The Yank opened the holster and found a Colt inside. He ejected the magazine and checked it. Racked the slide, and a cartridge flipped out of the chamber. Retrieved the round, slid it into the magazine, and pushed the magazine back into the pistol. Racked the slide to rechamber the cartridge.
“I think this thing still works,” the American said. “You want a .45? I already got one.”
“Danke.”
The aviator placed the weapon back in the holster and handed the holster and web belt to Wilhelm. Wilhelm buckled the belt around his waist.
“Magazine’s full,” the pilot said. Wilhelm nodded. Though he still had his Luger, he felt grateful to have the Colt as well. In the event of capture, the U.S. handgun would make his claim to be a downed American a little more plausible.
Wilhelm tried to imagine that scene: Could he really make an SS officer believe he was a Yank flier? Could he mimic this pilot’s accent, use some of his American turns of phrase? I’m a sailor, Wilhelm thought, not an actor. But an idea came to him that could make the ruse less likely to fail.
“I do not like to suggest this,” Wilhelm said, “but I think I should wear those dog tags, as you call them.”
The American, still kneeling beside the flying suit with the rib cage inside, stared up at Wilhelm. His expression darkened.
“Hell no,” the Yank said.
“You say I should try to pass as a U.S. aviator if we become captured. Those identification tags will make the story easier to believe. You know how we Germans love official papers and tags.”
“Forget it. These dog tags need to get back to his wife.”
“But if the SS kills me, they will probably kill you in the next instant. And Janet Meade will never know what happened to her husband.”
The Yank glared at Wilhelm. Clenched his jaw and kept silent for a long moment.
The wreckage around us probably heightens his grief and anger, Wilhelm thought. If I suddenly came across a U-boat right now, how would I feel? I’d imagine it manned by all my lost comrades.
“It’s bad enough to take his parachute and gun,” the aviator said finally. “I’m not letting you steal his name, too.”
“I understand your reverence for fallen comrades,” Wilhelm said. “Believe me, I do. But I think Sergeant Meade would want you to survive.”
The Yank appeared unmoved. If anything, he looked angrier. “What if you get killed with his dog tags on you, and they ship you to the States?” he said. “Then his family gets the tags on the wrong body. What are they going to think? How will they feel then?”
“Let us hope neither of us dies or gets captured. But if we do face the SS, we will need to use every resource at our disposal.”
The Yank sighed hard, and he looked down at what little remained of Sergeant Carlton Meade. Reached into his pocket for the dog tags and chain. Still grim-faced, he passed them to Wilhelm. Once more, Wilhelm read the lettering on the tags.
“Thank you for your help, Sergeant Meade,” Wilhelm said. He slipped the chain over his head and dropped the dog tags inside his shirt.
The two fugitives remained inside the B-24 hull and waited for the rain to pass. The Yank remained sullen. Normally, Wilhelm would have welcomed a pause in the man’s quips and Americanisms, but the silence felt hostile. Perhaps he blames me, symbolically, for the death of that airman, Wilhelm thought. And for the fate of his friends.
The two men wrapped themselves in sections of parachute cloth and settled in to rest. This time, the Yank kept his distance despite the cold. Wilhelm nodded off immediately. When he woke up, the rain had stopped. A familiar buzz filled his ears. He emerged from his bedding like a caterpillar sloughing off a cocoon and stumbled to the open end of the fuselage. Looked up through the trees.
He saw no aircraft, but he could tell the clouds had lifted enough for planes to fly. And he could not mistake that noise: the Storch, once again crisscrossing in a search pattern.
Behind him, the American stirred.
“So they haven’t forgotten about us,” he said.
26
Breakdown
The noise from the Kraut puddle jumper put Karl in an even worse mood. He thought he’d shaken that damned thing. Karl and the German waited inside the B-24 until dusk, when the Storch gave up the search and growled away into the distance.
Now Karl just wanted to get away from the wreckage—for a lot of reasons: Inside the crashed bomber, he could not get Adrian and his other crewmates out of his head. Also, his mind, stressed and fatigued, wandered to strange places. Karl kept imagining the Liberator intact. He wanted to climb into the cockpit and magically take off and fly home. But, of course, there was nothing forward of the bomb bay except German forest.
Out loud, Karl gave a more practical reason for moving.
“I don’t know if the Storch pilot saw this tail section from the air,” Karl said. “Maybe not, since it isn’t what he’s looking for. But if I spotted half an airplane lying in the woods, I’d sure get on the radio and tell somebody.”
The U-boat man agreed, so they rolled up their bedding and stuffed it into the knapsack. Checked their weapons. Headed farther into the forest without a backward glance at the resting place of Sergeant Carlton S. Meade.
The night made for rough walking. Though the cloud ceiling had lifted, it had not dissipated. And clouds at ten thousand feet blocked the moonlight as effectively as clouds just above the ground. Both men muttered curses as invisible branches slapped their faces and unseen roots tripped them. From time to time, they paused to check their course. The German, shading his flashlight with his hand, aimed a slice of illumination at Karl’s button compass. At each stop, they confirmed a southwesterly course toward the Weser. The light reddened the Kraut’s fingers as if the blood inside them glowed. During one compass check, the sailor’s shivering jiggled the
light everywhere except onto the compass, and Karl lost patience.
“Keep that damned thing still, will you?” Karl hissed. Stress, strain, and grief shortened his fuse, and he didn’t care if this enemy naval officer knew it.
The Kraut said nothing and looked at Karl with a wounded expression. Gripped the flashlight with both hands and managed to focus the beam onto the compass.
What the hell is he doing, Karl wondered, shining that light all over the place? Trying to get us caught?
All along, the sailor had said for him there was no turning back. The German authorities would execute him for desertion, immediately and without trial. No mitigating circumstances would help. He had crossed the Rubicon, blah, blah, blah.
But maybe he’s having second thoughts, Karl imagined. Getting cold feet about running away from the navy. Looking for an exit, an open escape hatch. Thinking about turning me in.
Thoughts as dark as the night forest tormented Karl as he groped through the trees. He could not see the Kraut; he could only hear him: footsteps a few feet away in the blackness. This whole thing is crazy, Karl thought, wandering through the Reich, trusting a German deserter. As soon as we get cornered, he’ll put a bullet in my back. I’ll live just long enough to think how it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Karl tried to bear all his burdens with stoic silence. But when a low-hanging branch brushed by the German smacked him in the mouth, he lost control. The blow stung like a leather strap. Karl stumbled backward, dropped his knapsack. Let loose a string of curses.
“Stupid son of a bitch,” Karl said. “Watch what the hell you’re doing.”
“Shh,” the sailor said, his voice disembodied by darkness. “Calm yourself.”
“Screw yourself.”
The German let the insult pass. After a minute or so, he said, “We are cold and tired. It’s no wonder you’re at the end of your tether. Let’s stay here for the night and not walk into any more trees. We’ll just wrap up in that parachute cloth you saved.”