“Now that you mention it,” Tommie said, “you do smell kind of ripe.”
Shim nodded. “I tried to wash as much of it off as I could in a stream back there. But,” he grinned, “I’d rather smell like shit than be dead.
“Anyway,” Shim continued, “I’m sure I shocked the farmer. He just stood there watching me climb down from his dung pile. When I realized he wasn’t going to do anything, I took off. I figured I’d head southwest. I was pretty surprised when I came up on you guys a while back. I didn’t know who you were, but it was obvious to me you didn’t want to be seen. I thought maybe we might be in the same boat. Small world, huh?”
Jon put his hand on Shim’s shoulder. “Even though you stink, I’m glad you’re here.” Shim put a hand up and set it on top of Jon’s. He nodded.
They struck out again, continuing down the road until it came to an end at a pair of farmhouses. They moved out into one of the fields and stayed well away from the houses. They’d been traveling for a couple hours when Jon realized there was a glow in the sky ahead of them. His first thought was that daybreak was coming, though it seemed early for that. Then he realized it couldn’t be daybreak, as they were moving in a southwesterly direction.
Perhaps, he thought, they were nearing a city or a large town. A plane flew overhead, and it was low. It was followed shortly thereafter by another. Then he remembered what one of the girls had said the day before. “They must be stationed at the airdrome.” Jon guessed they were approaching an airfield.
They came to a slight rise, and Jon instinctively crouched as he climbed, getting down on his hands and knees for the last few feet. When he reached the top, he peered over and saw his guess had been correct. Spread out before him was a facility that, though it was a mere fraction of the size of the base at Stanbridge, had the same general appearance. He found himself staring almost straight down a runway lined with bright lights.
Shim and Tommie crawled up to either side of Jon. As they did, another plane flew overhead, only a few feet above them. It had twin engines and, instead of a conventional tail, there were two short vertical stubs mounted on the ends of the rear horizontal stabilizer. Jon recognized it immediately. It was a Messerschmitt Bf 110. Originally designed to fill a role as an escort for German heavy bombers and to serve as a light bomber itself, it had been retooled as one of the primary weapons the Luftwaffe threw against the American and British bombers. Jon had seen many of them as they had attacked the formations in which he’d flown.
These were obviously night fighters. Jon guessed the planes landing now had been scrambled earlier in the evening to attack formations of British heavy bombers.
“That’s our ticket home,” Tommie said, after a moment.
“Oh, really,” Shim said. “Are we just going to walk in and check one out? Did you bring your library card, because I seem to have left mine back in Stanbridge.”
“How do you think we’re going to steal one of those?” asked Abernathy, who had joined them at the top.
Tommie said, “I have no idea.” He turned to Jon. “Jon, how are we going to do it?”
#
General Lloyd Kimbrough set the phone back into the receiver and looked at Penny Radkovich. He shook his head. Penny nodded slowly, a profound sadness on her face.
General Kimbrough had arrived at his office earlier than usual that morning. To his surprise, he found Mary already at her desk, her face drawn, dark circles under her eyes. She explained that she’d not heard from Jon since Wednesday, and, what was more alarming, Jon had not kept their appointment to meet at Victoria Station on Saturday. Mary had waited all day and well into the night, as each train had come and gone. She’d not slept for the past two nights, and she had been waiting for several hours at her desk for General Kimbrough to arrive that morning, hoping that he might be able to check on Jon’s status.
He had her ring 96th Group headquarters for him. Colonel Halliday had personally called him back an hour later. Unfortunately, the news the colonel delivered was not good. Jon’s plane had gone down on Saturday in a raid over Bremen.
General Kimbrough broke the news to Mary. Looking at her stricken face, he added that several parachutes had been observed. What he didn’t tell her was that only four ‘chutes had actually been seen, dramatically lowering the odds that Jon had survived. Because Mary had been assuming the worst, though, she was somewhat heartened by the general’s little white lie. She kept her poise and informed General Kimbrough that she was confident Jon would be ok and would find a way to return to her.
Shortly before noon, General Kimbrough received a second call from Colonel Halliday. This time, the colonel delivered the worst possible news. Jon’s status had been modified from MIA, missing in action, to KIA, killed in action. The colonel reported that he did not have any more details, but promised to find out what he could and get back to the general.
Mary, who had put the call through, was waiting anxiously when he came out of his office. He lied again to her and told her that there was still no information regarding Jon. Then he asked Mary to take some papers to 20 Grosvenor Square for him and to wait for them to be signed before bringing them back. When she was gone, he placed two calls.
The first was to a close acquaintance at the headquarters building letting him know that a Private Dahlgren would be arriving with an envelope full of meaningless papers and asking that she be kept waiting until the general called back. His friend readily agreed to do the favor.
Then General Kimbrough called the Office of the Chief Surgeon for the Eighth Air Force, where he knew Mary’s good friend, Penny, worked. He wanted Penny to be available when he broke the news to Mary. Penny arrived forty-five minutes later, and the general then called his friend to tell him to return the envelope to Mary.
The general had just received a follow up call from Colonel Halliday. The colonel reported that Jon’s body had been recovered by the Germans from a wooded area to the west of Bremen. Apparently, Jon had, in fact, been one of the crewmen who’d bailed out of the damaged plane, but he had not survived, his neck having been broken in the fall. The information had been passed along through the Red Cross.
There was a tap at the general’s office door, and Mary entered, carrying the envelope he’d given her earlier. She had a momentary look of confusion when she saw Penny. Then her eyes went wide, and the color drained from her face.
“Oh, no,” Mary said. “Oh, God, no.”
Mary looked as though she might fall, but Penny moved quickly. She reached out and put her arms around Mary, pulling her close.
“No, no, no,” Mary said, her voice muffled against Penny’s blouse. Then Mary drew in a large breath, and she was suddenly wracked with immense sobs. Penny held Mary tightly. She had a stoic look on her face, though the general could see her eyes were moist, and there was a distance to them.
The general glanced away, a feeling of helplessness gnawing at him. He’d faced his share of grief. He’d lost a sister to cancer ten years earlier, and, as a young infantry officer in the first world war, he’d had a number of men under his command killed or badly wounded. Yet, for some reason, this hurt in a way he couldn’t have possibly imagined.
#
“That one over there,” Jon said, pointing.
“By the maintenance shed?” Tommie asked.
Jon nodded. “Yes. Both nights it’s been the last one out. It’s in shadow for the most part. And, because it’s out of the way, the other ground crew won’t have any reason to walk past the spot after the planes have left.”
Tommie thought for a moment. “Do we know that plane’s scheduled to sortie tonight?”
“It’s loaded with ammunition and fuel. They finished up a little while ago. Don’t see why it wouldn’t be. And,” Jon shrugged, “if it’s not, we take it anyway.”
Tommie nodded. “All right,” he said, starting to back up. “Let’s tell the others.”
Jon put a hand on Tommie’s sleeve. “You sure you can fly that thing?”
Tommie gave Jon a grin. “Piece o’ cake.”
They half-crawled, half-slid down the embankment and rejoined Shim and Abernathy, where they huddled together to review the plan.
After they’d discovered the airfield on Sunday night, the four of them had worked their way south, then west to a spot located along the edge of the German base, across the main runway from the maintenance and personnel facilities. The ridge they’d been on when they first came upon the field became steeper the further they traveled and eventually fell off into a small valley through which ran a stream swollen with winter runoff. They found an ideal hiding place in a thick copse of evergreen trees perched on the side of the slope, a few yards below the crest of the ridge. Aside from a handful of animal tracks, there was no evidence the place where they were hiding was ever occupied or visited.
Perhaps because the base was situated in Germany, as opposed to occupied territory where there would be concerns regarding possible sabotage, there appeared to be little security. Or, at least that had turned out to be the case on the side of the airfield where Jon and his fellow crewmates were hiding. As far as they’d been able to tell, the precautions the Germans had taken to safeguard the perimeter consisted of wooden posts placed at thirty foot intervals and strung with three lines of barbed wire. The fence would keep out large animals, but not a person. They’d seen no guards and no patrols.
On Monday and Tuesday, they carefully observed the activities at the airfield, taking particular note of the procedures followed by the air and ground crews getting the fighters into the sky. On both days, the planes were fueled and armed in the late afternoon and early evening. Then a quiet descended over the field.
On Monday night, about an hour after sunset, a claxon sounded, and there was a sudden swarm of activity. Men emerged from the wooden structures at the far side of the field and sprinted toward the planes. At each aircraft, two men scrambled up into the cockpit and fired up the engines. Two ground crew members per plane stood by near the outer edge of each wing, ready to pull cords that would release the stops from under the front wheels. The planes had not taken off, however. Fifteen minutes later, there was the sound of another horn, and the crews stood down, returning to the buildings from which they’d emerged.
Around midnight, the same thing occurred, only this time, the planes taxied the short distances from their dispersed locations along the far side of the field and took off one at a time.
On Tuesday night, the claxon sounded a couple of hours after sunset, and, following the same mad scramble of personnel, the planes took off again. While Jon and Abernathy conducted a vigil from their observation spot at the top of the ridge, Tommie and Shim went reconnoitering, working their way counterclockwise around the perimeter fence to see what kind of security was present. They returned a couple hours later to report that the boundary defenses appeared to be identical on the other side. Shim had even slipped into the compound for a few minutes. When Tommie recounted that detail, Shim had, with a devilish look on his face, reached into his jacket and pulled out an enormous wrench. “I figured it might come in handy,” he announced, holding it in one hand and slapping it against the palm of his other.
They decided to make their move on Wednesday night. The plan was simple. The four of them would work their way around the perimeter to the far side, slip through the fence and hide in the shadows behind one of the wooden structures from which they’d seen men emerge during the scrambles the two nights before. They’d wait for the claxon to sound, then they’d start running and join with the others pouring out of the buildings, heading for the plane they’d selected. Their hope was that, in the darkness, no one would notice their uniforms were different.
They’d each been assigned to shadow one of the four men who crewed the targeted plane. Shim and Abernathy would take the ground crewmen. The plan was that, in the confusion, each would step up behind his man and deliver a hard blow to the back of the man’s head. Shim would wield his wrench. Abernathy had found a rock whose shape allowed him to grip it, but was big enough to get the job done.
Jon and Tommie would take the air crewmen. They’d have to use their fists. Ben’s Widowmaker was going to come in handy. If they could get to the pilot and radio operator before they boarded the plane, so much the better. Otherwise, Jon intended to grab one of the caps the ground crewmen wore, put it on his head, and climb up on the wing, announcing that there was a fire below the fuselage and the men needed to get out quickly. Once they’d gotten the men away from the plane, they’d disable them. If they couldn’t get the men to leave the plane voluntarily, they’d have to deliver the blows to the men while they were seated in the cockpit and then drag their bodies out. It would delay things and increase the chance of drawing attention from others, but it was the best plan they’d been able to devise.
The last resort was Tommie’s .45. They hoped not to have to use deadly force, but they were prepared to do so if necessary.
Although only two crewmen manned the plane they intended to steal, the aircraft had been originally designed for a crew of three. The pilot sat in the forward portion of the cockpit. Behind him was a space intended to accommodate the remaining two crewmembers. It would be a tight fit, but they’d be able to squeeze in three. Shim would take the rear seat. Jon and Abernathy would share the middle section. Since Jon might need to assist Tommie reading the German controls, Abernathy would go in first and make himself as small as possible.
Once they had control of the plane, their plan was to taxi to the end of the runway, take off as if they were heading out on the mission with the others, and, once airborne, simply turn west and slip away under cover of the darkness.
It was by no means a perfect plan. There was a very good chance they’d be caught or, worse, killed. But they’d all agreed it was worth trying. For Jon, it offered the only reasonable chance to get back to Mary, so, no matter the odds, he would take them.
As soon as the sun set, the four of them left their hiding place, and, moving in single file, they quietly followed the curve of the ridge around the perimeter of the airfield. Because there were no flight operations at the moment, the navigation and runway lights were off, so the glow that had been in the sky when they’d first discovered the base on Sunday night was not present. There was, however, an almost full moon, so they were able to pick their way easily through the trees and underbrush.
When they reached the point at which Shim had passed through the wire the previous night, they huddled together at the tree line, listening carefully for any sounds that would indicate the presence of sentries. They heard nothing. Finally, Jon and Tommie crawled forward. Tommie stood in a crouch and put his foot on the lowest of the three wires. He gripped the second wire and pulled it up, making an opening large enough to accommodate Jon. Jon had put one leg on the other side of the wire and was just swinging his body through when the silence was shattered by the sound of the claxon.
Jon froze momentarily, his heart beating rapidly. He quickly reversed himself, stepped back outside the wire, and he and Tommie scrambled back to the safety of the trees.
After a moment, Jon heard the first of the planes’ engines firing up. Soon the air around them shimmered with the roar generated by a combined force of over twenty four thousand horsepower. From where they lay, the planes were shielded from view by structures, so Jon could not tell whether they had started taxiing. He listened carefully for a variation in pitch that would indicate the first of them taking off. If they did take off, the plans for the night would be a bust, and the four of them would have to return to their hiding place to wait another day.
Several minutes passed, and there had been no change. Jon looked at Tommie, who shrugged. Suddenly, the horn blew again. Almost immediately, the sound of the engines began to diminish until, a minute later, relative quiet had returned. In the distance, Jon could hear men calling to one another, and he heard someone laugh. It took a few minutes for the voices to stop. When they did, the area was once aga
in plunged into silence.
They waited, listening. When he was satisfied the Germans had returned to wherever it was they congregated while waiting for word to man their planes, Jon tapped Tommie on the shoulder and nodded toward the fence. Silently, Tommie crawled forward and again held the wire for Jon.
Jon slipped into the compound, followed in rapid succession by Abernathy and then Shim, who held the wire for Tommie. They moved quickly to the rear of the nearest building, which they had concluded was some sort of storage facility. Led by Shim, who’d previously been there, they crept along the back wall until they came to a gap between it and the next structure. To reach the building beyond, they would need to cross approximately fifteen yards of open space that was, in comparison to the shadow in which they now crouched, brightly illuminated by the moon. No one spoke. They’d worked out the details in advance.
Jon and Tommie stood upright, and, as casually as they could manage, they walked across the gap between the buildings, Jon holding his breath the entire way. When they reached the other side, they melted into the shadow behind the building and listened intently. All seemed to be quiet. Two minutes after they’d made the crossing, Shim and Abernathy came strolling over. Again, they listened for any sound that would indicate trouble, and, again, they detected nothing.
The next three buildings were close together, so they did not need to leave the shadows. However, these buildings were either living or working quarters. They had no idea whether the first two were currently occupied. But, the last one they knew for sure contained several men, as it was one of the structures from which members of the crews would emerge if the signal again sounded. Their intent was to wait behind that building.
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