by Guy Worthey
Ace said, “I read about it. It should be straightforward.”
Quack blinked. “You just — read about it.”
Bert groaned and drank faster.
When Bert began to slur his words, the operation began. Tombstone held a kerosene lamp high to give light. The rest made a curious ring, including the Knoxes’ younger son, eyes wide as saucers.
Ace located the bullet by palpating his shoulder with gentle fingertips. The bullet had passed most of the way through Bert’s shoulder, coming to rest a knuckle-width below the skin on the far side. Ace made a precise, inch-long incision. By sense of touch or some mysterious sixth sense, Ace reached sterile needle-nosed pliers into the oozing incision, and extracted the bullet in one smooth motion. Quack was ready with a whisky-soaked swab, followed by needle and thread to suture the skin shut. Bert bit on a rag to keep from screaming, tears running down his face. After Quack wrapped him with clean bandages, Bert removed the rag and quavered, “I hate you and love you at the same time.”
♠♠♠
Everyone slept late into next morning. Mrs. Knox woke them by announcing it was bath time and handed them all towels to wrap themselves with. Ace got Mrs. Knox’s housecoat. The sunburst of joy and gratitude from the Allies made the Knoxes laugh and smile. While they bathed, Mrs. Knox washed their clothes.
Clean, but waiting for her coveralls to dry, Ace wandered into a walled herb garden at the back of the house. Keeping an ear open for airplanes, she relaxed on a small bench. Patches of sunlight brought fleeting warmth to the chilly, cloud-speckled October day. Ten-year-old Pietr Knox crept out of the house and approached Ace tentatively.
Ace spoke in French. “Pietr. You look like you have something on your mind.”
Pietr hesitated. Ace patted the seat beside her.
Pietr plopped down. Forgetting his shyness, he piped, “I want to fly airplanes when I grow up!”
“And why is that?”
“I like airplanes! And the Ottomans are bad. They took Rolf and all our cattle, and they frightened us. I want to kill them.”
Ace replied soberly, “Will killing them solve anything?
Pietr thought for a moment. “It will end the war.”
“Yes. But, Pietr, that is all. Once the war is over, there no point to killing. More killing after the war is over would only make things worse.”
Pietr stuck out his lower jaw. “I still want to be a pilot!”
Ace laughed. “Good! Give me another reason you want to!”
“I want to fly in the air!”
“Ah, that’s a better reason. There’s nothing like flying.”
“Maybe someday we will fly to the moon!” Pietr bounced in his seat.
“Well. I never thought of that. Maybe you can.”
“And I want to be just like you, Madame!”
“Now you’ve gone too far! Take this sprig of rosemary with you and go help peel potatoes, you little fox!” Ace shooed the grinning boy off.
There was a lot of potato-peeling going on in the kitchen. Five men dressed in towels chopped cabbage, simmered chicken stock, and peeled and cubed potatoes. Except Bert. Bert was leaning on the kitchen door frame, holding his head. He was hung over.
“Voici le romarin!” Pietr piped, weaving through the lumpy maze of legs, holding up his herb.
“Rosemary?” rumbled Gooper. “Well, now. Hain’t that a good idea! ’Oo thought o’ that, I wonder?” He added the sprig to the queue of things to be chopped.
“Captain Carroway, no doubt,” Quack said.
“Captain Flying Ace Carroway,” said Tombstone.
“Keep it down, yah?” Bert pleaded, holding his head.
Stirring and chopping sounds filled the rustic kitchen. Bert raised his head and looked blearily at the motley collection of paradoxically appealing misfits. “So, erm,” he began hesitantly. They all looked at him. Bert lost his nerve and said instead, “So, Ace. She’s underage.”
Quack said, “Yes. Maybe explains part of why she likes to keep a low profile. She doesn’t want to be sent home.”
Sam said, “I think you are right, Quack. However, we should not dwell on it. Until we escape back to France, there are more pressing problems.”
“Yup.” Tombstone nodded at Sam.
Bert steeled himself, then forged ahead. “But what do you think of her?”
The stirring and chopping sounds stopped as everyone considered the simple-sounding but profound question. The silence stretched.
Finally, Quack said, “She’s Ace!”
There was a general meeting of eyes and nods of accord. The chopping and stirring resumed.
♠♠♠
When the Allies got their coveralls back, they were not only washed, but also dyed a dark brown. Mr. Knox proudly distributed the garments to a chorus of appreciation from all. The new color was much better for staying hidden than the original white, even considering the grease stains and slathered muck.
When everyone was dressed again, Ace cornered Tombstone. “What’s left in your bag of wires, Tombstone? Any more bombs?”
“Ah reckon not, ma’am,” Tombstone answered dolefully. “Th’ vacuum tubes broke in the escape. The battery Ah used in the transmitter is iffy, but there’s a spare. Ah got an ’lectric speaker, lots o’ wire, resistors an’ capacitors . . .”
Ace was silent for a minute, then snapped her fingers. “That’ll be good enough! You can make a timer using RC circuits. We’ll need ten or fifteen minutes on the timer. Then it needs to trigger the solenoid you’re going to build out of the loudspeaker. The solenoid core will bump a hair-trigger brace. Without the brace, the wire cutters will snap closed. All we are missing is a thick spring.”
Tombstone struggled to keep up. “Uh, you want a timer that triggers an electromagnet, and then a wire gets cut?”
“That’s right. Like a mousetrap. A tiny touch, then, snap! I’ll build the mousetrap. You build the timer that makes the solenoid core go bump.”
Ace did not waste time. Their stay in the cozy house would end at sundown, and it was already afternoon. She slipped out into the gray day furtively, eyes and ears alert for anything moving. She ducked into a shed and blinked.
Gooper was sitting in there, a cat on his lap. Another cat rode his shoulders. His thick finger caressed the chin of a third sitting near, its feline eyes half closed in bliss.
Gooper looked up at Ace, pale face flushing red. “Oy, Oy was just, err …”
Ace fought back a smile. “I don’t see any cats. None at all. You’ve come to help me look for a spring.”
“Aye. A spring. That’ll be the thing.”
Ace returned to the house carrying a rusty but sturdy spring and the broken leg of a chair. The farmers gifted the useless junk to the escaping Allies with a shrug and a laugh.
Ace affixed the stiff spring across the wire nipper handles. She whittled the hardwood of the broken chair leg to prop the device open. The wooden prop slipped out very easily. When propped open, delicately but under great tension, the nippers became fearsome. Ace tested it by wedging a thick stick into the jaws. With the lightest of touches, the jaws snapped shut and the stick popped into two pieces.
Tombstone happened to witness it, and commented, “Tarnation!”
Bert appeared in the doorway, standing steady and looking only slightly pale. “Supper’s ready!”
Chapter 1 4
Darkness fell. There were handshakes and hugs and farewells, but not many dry eyes. The Allies hiked off toward Verviers dressed in brown. Bert said he felt like a new man.
About ten miles and two forested ridges later, Bert retracted his opinion. “I’m gassed! Can we take a rest?”
“No need. We’re here,” Ace said over her shoulder. “Peek around the next trees. We’re still high up on the ridge, but you’ll see the base.”
The Allies hunkered down and peered out. Electric light made the fantastic scene more eerie. Five airship hangers loomed like monstrous pill bugs lined up at a drinking trou
gh, dominating the regular hangars.
Gray traces of dawn tinged the eastern sky. Larks sang welcome to the day’s beginning, ignorant of matters of war. At the hangars, dotlike workers wheeled out two airships. Majestically the ribbed, rigid giants rolled forward, emerging from their cocoons into the electric light. Beneath the gas bag two gondolas hung like metal shoes with windows. When the angled tail fins cleared the hangars, rows of propeller-capped engine cars belched smoke and roared to life.
“They are gigantic!” Sam breathed.
Ace’s narrowed eyes studied them. “More engine cars than I’ve ever seen! Eight of them, it looks like. That means speed. The forward gondola is for the crew. The rear one … I’m guessing that’s for bombs. I see machine guns in the rear. I think it does not dock at a mast. It sits on its own wheels. It must have a ground anchor of some kind.”
“They’re bombers?” Quack said.
“Long-range bombers,” Ace answered grimly. “Probably thousands of miles of range. They could strike anywhere in Europe.”
As daylight brightened, the airships prepared to launch. The hidden Allies watched the stately behemoths leave the ground and float off into the morning sky.
“Ah didn’t see ’em loadin’ any ordnance on board,” Tombstone said.
“What is ordnance, sahib?” Sam asked.
“Bombs an’ ammo,” Tombstone said.
Bert said, “Are there just the two airships, or all five? Maybe they are making test flights, or observation flights.”
Quack said, “Ace? What’s the plan, anyway?”
Ace replied, “Plan A is to cut the power in the middle of the night so the electric lights go out. Tombstone and I built a timer hooked to the wire cutter. With the lights out, we can sneak into an airship unseen. Hopefully, we can fire up the engines and go. With the moon waning, the night will be dark. In the best of all possible worlds, it would be nice to have a diversion. This is a military base, and everyone down there has a gun. They have trucks mounted with machine guns. They probably have big guns … yes, see? There, and there.” Ace pointed. “They have cannon made to shoot airplanes.”
“Did yew say diversion?” Gooper tasted the word in his mouth as if it were fine wine.
“Whoa, there, dogie!” Tombstone said, motioning to shush Gooper.
Ace said, “No, it’s all right. Let’s have everybody’s ideas.”
Sam said, “What sort of thing would make them roll out all the airships?”
Bert said, “An inspection?”
Sam said, “Possibly.”
Bert blurted, “An attack!” He deflated. “But we probably can’t manage that.”
Quack said, “Could we come close? Could we make the air raid sirens go off? Assuming they have air raid sirens, that is.”
“Ow, let’s just find where they keep the bombs and blow ’em up!” Gooper was impatient.
Ace said, “Hold up, Gooper. Having the regular crews roll out the dirigibles solves a lot of problems. We would stow away, then overpower the crew once we are in clear air.”
“Well, blowing up the munitions wouldn’t ’urt anything! It’d make the attack more believable,” Gooper cajoled.
Ace scanned the scene microscopically.
A low, haunting warble tickled the ears. It was impossible to locate the source. Most of the men looked around at the trees. Sam’s eyes fell on Ace. The sound died.
Ace said, “Gooper, I’m about to make your day. Do you see the building almost hidden in the trees? It’s on the near corner, close to us and very far from everything else. That’s got to be where they keep the explosives. There’s nowhere else that makes sense. Not by all the planes and their hangars. Not by the airships and their hangars. It’s right there by the forest edge.”
“I am purrin’ like a kitten!” Gooper admitted, wringing his hands in anticipation.
Tombstone said, “Aw, don’t encourage the Limey. Not that Ah object to explosions. Ah kinda like ’em.”
Ace was subdued. “The bad news is we only have one timer. We can rig it to tap a detonator inside that building, but if we do, we can’t cut the electricity.”
“I can’t spot the power wires anyway, Ace,” Quack said. “Except ’way over there, north toward Verviers itself, there is a row of poles. I think the cables must be buried.”
Bert said, “I hate to agree with the Quack, but he’s right on this one.”
“Fair enough. Power outage is demoted to Plan B. For now, let’s stay and watch. There will be patrols around the perimeter. We need to time them.”
They watched. They discovered that there was always a patrol. It consisted of four guards. They strolled ceaselessly around the inside of the fence that enclosed the airport. The perimeter was so vast that it took them half an hour to make one round.
“They will notice a hole in the fence,” Sam said, “Therefore, in less than thirty minutes of us getting in, there will be an alarm.”
Quack said, “Say! I have an idea! We can pose as that unit of guards, and walk around the inside of the fence right to the airship hangars. From a distance, we’d look the same, just a group of people.”
“You like to impersonate people, Quack,” Bert said. “I remember that from Harvard.”
Ace said, “I think we’ve seen enough for now. Let’s try to get a little sleep.”
Chapter 1 5
They slept fitfully up a convenient ravine, invisible under blankets of colorful dry leaves. Warplanes buzzed overhead frequently, landing and taking off. In the afternoon, they gave up on sleep. Quack patiently extracted drinking water from a hillside seep, but only a few nuts could be found to eat. Ace removed the hinge from the heavy wire cutters, separating the tool into a pair of awkward axes. She handed the implements to Gooper and Quack. “Pick a slender log with branches still attached. Not too slender. It has to hold Gooper’s weight. Chop off the branches on top and bottom, and make the sideways ones stubby.”
“What for?” Quack was mystified.
“A ladder, you Quack-pot!” Bert smugly informed him. “You made such a mess of the last fence that this time we’re just climbing over it.”
Quack said, “Wipe that smirk off your face, Brat, or I’ll wipe it off for you!”
After the crude ladder was shaped, Gooper tested it out, climbing a walnut tree and scoring a few more nuts. The ladder did not break.
Ace harvested a sapling. She trimmed off the branches and lopped off the top. The sapling became a slender pole about twelve feet long.
Sam said, “What is that for, Lady Ace?”
Ace said, “Clear me a path.” Holding the pole in front of her, she accelerated forward in an open lane between trees. She planted the pole into the ground. The sapling bent as her forward momentum was transformed to upward flight. Ace flew ten feet in the air before letting go of the pole and wheeling her arms for a crouch landing.
“Pole vault!” exclaimed Tombstone.
Then they all scrambled for cover. Warplanes droned overhead on a landing approach.
♠♠♠
Before sunset, the Allies crept back to scout the airport some more. They brought their makeshift ladder and pole. This time, they came to the edge of the forest, a stone’s throw from the building they thought held bombs and munitions. It was isolated, ventilated, unremarkable.
They spotted the air raid horns. They were mechanical, not electric. To operate them, one grasped a handle at the back and gave a few hearty turns. They would wail like banshees.
“I see two sirens. No more,” Sam said.
“Yep,” agreed Tombstone. “One’s ’way across the airstrip by the airplane hangars where we ain’t goin’. An’ the other’s past the farthest airship hangar, where we also ain’t goin’.”
Bert mournfully observed, “You know your plan is in trouble when the easiest option is exploding the ordnance storage.”
“Hush. Here comes the patrol again,” Quack whispered.
♠♠♠
Slothlike, the sun s
ank into a cloud bank near the western horizon. Evening twilight crept grudgingly into the sky.
It was agony for the raw-nerved Allies to wait, but they knew their false air raid would be more plausible at midnight. They had no choice. They waited, gritting their teeth against the jagged, twitchy impulse to leap into action.
Night fell, starry and cold. The Allies maintained their vigil as the hours crawled by.
Ace broke the strained silence. “Fellas. I would like to say, whatever happens next, I was lucky to meet you. I never had anybody just accept me the way I was before. You fellas are terrific.”
Assorted hems and haws rumbled.
Tombstone said, “Aww, Ace! Yer— Get down!”
Headlights swept across their position outside the perimeter fence. They got low behind their respective tree trunks. After a while, they peeked. A laden flatbed truck rolled right up to the bomb bunker. It unhurriedly seesawed to get turned around backwards. It backed up to the building, very gently. The engine shut off.
The Allies could not see the action very well from their location behind the building. They caught glimpses of two men in officer’s caps silhouetted against the electric lights of the distant field. The officers cast long shadows. Faint sounds of locks being opened, chains being unwound, and latches being released wafted through the air to the tense six. This went on for quite a while.
“Lots o’ locks!” Gooper whispered, impressed.
The ordnance officers labored. Time stretched. The Allies wondered and waited, cramped and tense. Carts rolled. Chains jingled. Conversational voices murmured. The four-soldier perimeter patrol came by, and for a few minutes the voices grew louder, calling greetings, joking, and chatting. After a prickly eternity the patrol went on its way again.
The foot patrol turned the corner and headed for the airplane hangars. Ace whispered, “We can’t let them lock up again. Follow me.”