“What’s going on?” Tommy asked the mothership’s flight engineer.
“Oil pressure indication’s going nuts, sir. Looks like the transmitter’s shot. We just replaced the relief valve, but no joy.”
“Got another transmitter, Sarge?”
“Yeah,” the flight engineer replied as he pointed to the baby. “We got four of them hanging right over there, just as soon as we can get at them.”
“You mean you’re going to swap with one of the baby’s oil pressure transmitters?”
The sergeant nodded.
Tommy puzzled over that for a moment. No jug pilot would ever even think about leaving the ground with a fluctuating oil pressure indication.
Surely, the pilots of a flying bomb wouldn’t either, right?
He asked the sergeant, “You sure that’s the smart solution?”
“It’s the one Major Staunton wants, sir. And what the hell else are we going to do? There isn’t a B-17 parts depot within three hundred miles of here.”
“What about Captain Pym? He’s the one who’s going to be flying the baby.”
“You’ll have to ask him about that, sir,” the flight engineer replied.
Tommy found Captain Pym in the operations tent, checking his parachute. When Tommy asked about having to contend with the fluctuating oil pressure indication, Pym just shrugged. “One way or the other, Lieutenant Moon, that plane will be written off a couple of hours from now. As long as that pressure needle’s bouncing and the temp’s normal, I’m good with it, and so is my co-pilot. Better you guys in the mothership have a reliable indicator. She’s got a lot more flying to do.”
Tommy replied, “I know what you’re saying, sir, but aren’t we throwing basic safety practices to the wind here? What’s going to happen if you shut that engine down? Or worse, it seizes up, catches fire, and maybe tears off its mounts. You’re sure as hell not going to try and land her, and we won’t have enough control over her with the remote system to contend with the asymmetric thrust.”
With a weary smile, Pym replied, “That won’t be my problem, Lieutenant. I’ve just got to get her off the ground and then float myself back down.” He paused and then added, “And it won’t be your problem, either, because you guys can’t even see the baby’s engine gauges on the monitor. All you need to know is if she’s flying where Dandridge points her or not.”
Major Staunton was at the mission status board, revising the departure time for the Bucket mission. He’d just erased 1300. In its place, he wrote 1400 in grease pencil.
“That gets us right up against the weather, sir,” Tommy told him. “In fact, if that front moves any faster, it’ll get us behind the weather.”
And if they were behind the weather, they probably wouldn’t see enough of the ground to put the baby anywhere near the target.
“It doesn’t matter now, Lieutenant Moon,” Staunton said. “We’re committed. If it wasn’t for that damn engine problem on the mothership now…”
He gave Tommy an accusing look, as if it was somehow all his fault.
At exactly 0901, General Bradley was on the line to Patton’s headquarters. “Time’s up, George,” Bradley said. “Where are your people?”
His voice had the tone of a drillmaster scolding a cadet.
Patton replied, “My men are on the verge of making history, Brad. We’re about to capture the gun batteries of Fort Driant.”
“That’s what you told me thirty minutes ago,” Bradley said. “And thirty minutes before that, too. Withdraw your troops from the fort, General.”
“Brad, listen to me. Nearly all my men are withdrawn to the five-mile line you’ve drawn. I’ve got less than a hundred men inside Driant’s perimeter but they’re—”
“No, George. You listen to your commander. I don’t care if you have only ten men inside Driant. Or even one. I will not put American soldiers on the wrong end of friendly air power. Not again. And neither will you. Withdraw your men. Now.”
“I can’t, Brad. I mean…it won’t happen that quickly.”
“And why not?”
“It’ll be so much harder for them to withdraw than to keep attacking. They’ll be running a gauntlet of German fire, surrendering the advantage they’ve gained so brilliantly. How can you ask me to sacrifice those fine men who are so close to victory? Besides, we have more time. We’ve just received word the Bucket mission’s been pushed back another hour…and with the weather that’s promised, I’m willing to bet they never come at all.”
“Yes, I know about the delay, George, but it doesn’t change a damn thing. I want those men at least five miles from Fort Driant, and I want them to start moving that way right now.”
There was silence from the other end of the line.
Seething, Bradley asked, “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Brad. I understand.”
“Good. I eagerly await your next report, George.”
Bradley rang off. Patton told himself, And with any luck at all, that next report will be the one in which I announce the fall of Driant’s guns…and Brad will forget all about that withdrawal order.
In fact, he’ll be pushing me to plow forward and take Metz.
Chapter Thirty
It was already past 1000 hours. The explosion from the tunnel Sean and the GIs in Bunker 3 were expecting still hadn’t come. Instead, the men on the ground floor reported several brief bursts of gunfire, accompanied by dull thuds they took to be the detonation of grenades. Whose grenades they were, nobody could tell.
When they’d tried to make their report to HQ at fifteen past the hour, the radio operators made a startling discovery: both the radio sets were dead. The batteries had given out.
“Ain’t you got no spares?” Sean asked.
The reply: “These are the spares, Sarge. We could try putting them out on the roof and let them bake in the sun for a while. Sometimes that rejuvenates them a little.”
“Yeah,” Sean replied. “I seen that done before. But how much sun you counting on seeing through them fucking clouds? I got a better idea. There’s that kitchen downstairs. Where there’s a kitchen, there’s a stove. We can cook the bastards. That’ll be faster, don’t you think?”
“Worth a try,” one of the radiomen said. He and his partner each tucked a bulky battery pack under an arm and trudged off down the staircase.
An out-of-breath infantry runner from Chenoweth’s team passed the radiomen as he came up the stairs. “We got trouble, Sarge,” the runner told Sean. “The Krauts in Bunker 4 got frisky again, dropped another couple of grenades down the stairs on us before we persuaded them to shut the fucking door.”
“Anyone hurt?” Sean asked.
“Yeah, dammit. We got three wounded. One of them’s the lieutenant. He’s still on his feet and calling the shots, but he’s beat up pretty bad.”
“Shit. What about the other two?”
“Stretcher cases, but the doc says they’re not gonna die or nothing. Not yet, anyway.”
“Fuck,” Sean mumbled. Then, at full volume, he said, “We gotta get our wounded the hell outta here.”
“Actually, Sarge, the lieutenant’s talking like maybe we all better get outta here. The grenades fucked up a lot of the engineers’ stuff. We’re all out of food, too, and the Krauts finally cut off the water. All we’ve got left is what’s in our canteens. He’s not sure we’ll be able to blow anything else. But he’s still trying.”
General Bradley was on the landline again, at 1045 hours. “I’ve been patiently waiting for your call, George,” he told Patton. “But I’m out of patience now. Where are the men who were on Fort Driant?”
“I don’t know, Brad. We’ve lost contact with them.”
There was silence on the line for several seconds. To George Patton, those seconds felt like a lifetime.
Finally, Bradley said, “Dammit.” Then he rang off.
Patton asked his G3, “What unit is that still inside Driant, anyway?”
“It’s a hodgepodge, s
ir,” the G3 replied. “From what we know, it’s a mix of Fifth Division infantry and engineers, with some tankers thrown in. They’re using a call sign from 37th Tank—Papa Gray 2-6.”
“Tell every commander from Corps right down to the battalions I want a pullback order transmitted to that call sign every ten minutes beginning now and until I say differently.”
“Do you want to send it in the clear, General?”
Patton thought that one over for a moment and then replied, “Negative, Colonel. We’re not that desperate. Code it.”
A few minutes before 1100 hours, the ordnance section crew chief walked into Bucket’s operations tent with surprising news. “The Torpex is loaded and wired, sir,” he told Major Staunton.
The burst of elation Staunton felt was immediately snuffed out by suspicion and dread. “How is that possible?” he asked the ordnance chief. “It should have taken another hour or two, easily. You didn’t take any shortcuts, did you, Sergeant?”
“No, sir. No shortcuts. Let’s just say we’re getting the hang of this.”
Still skeptical, Staunton stepped outside to look at the two Flying Fortresses sitting on the ramp. Sure enough, the mechanics already had an engine opened up on the baby. They were busily installing something on that engine.
“They’re clear to hang that oil pressure transmitter now, sir,” the ordnance chief said. “Once they finish the swap on the mothership, they’re ready to go.”
Staunton ran back inside the tent. “Round up the flight crews,” he ordered the operations sergeant. “We’re going early. Get a message to Third Army to that effect. We’re going to beat this weather yet.”
“What time should I tell them we’ll be over the target, sir?”
“Tell them 1230 hours, Sergeant.”
It had only taken a few minutes to bring the coal-fired oven in Bunker 3’s kitchen up to temperature. They put the radio battery packs on a cooking pan and slid them inside, not daring to close the oven door.
“We’ve got to keep a good eye on them,” one radio operator told the other. “They’re in cardboard cases, for cryin’ out loud. If the case goes up in flames, we’re fucked.”
“Yeah,” the other operator replied. “How long you figure we should keep them in there?”
“What do I look like, a scientist? How the hell should I know?”
The batteries answered the question for them. After about ten minutes, the cardboard cover of one began to singe. Using a scrounged towel to keep their hands from being burned, they pulled both batteries out of the oven. They’d tried to dampen the towel in the kitchen sink but found the Germans had cut off the water to Bunker 3, as well.
When plugged back into the radio sets, the radiomen found they’d restored enough juice to operate the receiver for a while, but trying to transmit depleted the battery immediately. Sean told them, “Put the one you just killed back in the oven. Don’t broil it this time, just warm the bastard. Use the other one to monitor the command net. Maybe we’ll get lucky and pick up something useful.”
Five minutes later, the radio had, indeed, picked up something useful: a coded order for Papa Gray 2-6. They were to abandon Fort Driant and withdraw to the town of Gorze, some five miles to the west.
“You sure that order’s on the level?” Sean asked.
“If it ain’t, Sarge, the Krauts just broke our code book.”
“You’re right,” Sean replied. He grabbed one of Cutter’s infantrymen, telling him, “Get your ass down the tunnel and tell Lieutenant Chenoweth we’ve been ordered to pull out. You better haul ass the whole way, too.”
As the runner set off down the stairs, Sean checked his watch. It read 1125.
The runner didn’t have to haul ass for very long. As soon as he got to Bunker 3’s cellar, he ran headlong into the rest of Lieutenant Chenoweth’s men. They were all huddled together after their own dash down the tunnel, waiting for the next attempt to blow the door to the gun batteries. Chenoweth, battered as he was from the last grenade attack, had the detonator in his hands as an engineer connected the wires from the explosives.
“Hold up, sir,” the runner called out. “Sergeant Moon’s got orders for us to pull out.”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Chenoweth said. “Now they want us to pull out?” He looked at the detonator in his hands like it was suddenly the most useless thing in the world:
Do I turn the handle on this thing or not?
If I don’t, well…all this boils down to just another stalemate.
If I do—and the door blows this time—maybe we kill a few more Krauts, even if we can’t exploit it.
Will it change our orders if we actually blow the door open?
He told the runner to return to Sergeant Moon and have him ask HQ that very question.
“Don’t know if he can, Lieutenant,” the runner replied.
“Why not?”
“Looks like those radios can only receive, not transmit.”
Chenoweth dropped the detonator to the floor, muttering, “Fuck it.”
But he picked it back up and said, “Here goes nothing.” Then he yelled, “FIRE IN THE HOLE.”
He counted to three and then turned the crank.
He expected a roaring explosion.
He got nothing but a deafening silence.
“Shit. It didn’t blow.”
Slumping against the tunnel wall, Chenoweth felt whatever strength he had left drain from him. The grenade wounds were taking their toll in pain and blood.
Struggling to get some volume in his voice, he said, “Section leaders, get your men organized. We’re pulling out.”
He told the runner, “Better get Sergeant Moon down here before…”
And then he fell unconscious.
The mothership’s engines were already running when Dandridge finally arrived on the flight line. Tommy had seen how difficult his injured arm had made donning his flight suit and parachute harness. Climbing into the Fortress would be another problem. Usually, the men who rode in the nose entered through the hatch on the lower forward fuselage. To avoid unnecessary ground equipment around the ship that could easily be blown into whirling propellers, the crewmen would enter by grasping the hatch frame—some six feet above the ground—and swinging up into the aircraft like a gymnast. But it took two good arms to accomplish that feat. For this mission, Tommy had seen to it that the ground crew was standing by with a ladder so Dandridge could get through the hatch with the least amount of trouble.
As they settled into the nose compartment, Dandridge asked, “What if we have to jump, sir? I don’t think I’ll be able to do it.”
“Sure you will,” Tommy replied. “I had to bail out once. Smacked into the stabilizer on the way out and broke my arm. But I got the chute open somehow…even climbed down out of the tree I landed in. If I can do it, you can do it.”
As the mothership taxied to the runway, Dandridge checked out the remote control gear. “I think I’ve got another problem, sir,” he said. “The switch on the control box—the one that selects the other functions—I can’t work it too well with my left hand. I’ll either have to let go of the joystick to use my right or—”
“Or you tell me what you need with that switch, and I’ll do it for you.”
Dandridge sounded relieved as he said, “That’ll work, sir.”
Then they were airborne, climbing into the scattered cloud deck that seemed to be dropping lower by the minute.
Lieutenant Wheatley’s voice came over the interphone. “Wheels up at 1202 hours.”
On board the baby, Captain Pym and his co-pilot cranked her engines. As number 3—the one with the faulty oil pressure transmitter installed—settled into the mechanical purr of idle RPM, her oil pressure gauge reading was normal and steady as a rock.
“I don’t see what all the fuss was about,” Pym said. “It’s reading fine.”
His voice grew tense as he added, “Now let’s see if we can get this widow-maker off the ground.”
; On the other side of A-90, Sergeant McNulty and his mechanics had just dispatched Colonel Pruitt and Lieutenant Tuttle, both their aircraft loaded with napalm. The other mechanics of the 301st were waiting for their jugs to return for the third refueling and rearming of the day. They stopped preparations to watch as the two Fortresses took to the sky. First came the one that looked like a normal B-17, its turrets bristling with machine guns. “She must be awful light,” Sergeant McNulty said, “because she got off the ground like a scared cat.”
The second Fortress, painted yellow and stripped of her guns—the one they didn’t know was referred to as the baby—was now taking her place at the end of the runway. One of the mechanics asked McNulty, “Hey, Sarge, you got any idea what they were loading into that girl this morning?”
“Yeah, I think I do,” McNulty replied.
“Well, you gonna tell us what it was?”
“Nope. Ain’t none of your business.”
Another mechanic asked, “Well, tell us this, Sarge—you think they’re going to come back here after their mission?”
McNulty replied, “One of them, maybe.”
Halfway down the runway, Captain Pym began to have serious doubts the baby would ever get airborne. She’d bounced into the air a couple of times, but after each bounce had settled back to the runway. He was getting as much power out of the engines as the book allowed.
But she still wasn’t flying. And the trees at the end of the runway had never looked so tall.
Need more power!
He teased the throttles forward just a little more, watching the manifold pressures on the engines rise above 50 inches, well beyond the Do Not Exceed limits.
And she still wouldn’t fly.
Fortress Falling (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 2) Page 28