by Sarah Sundin
He stumbled toward the living quarters. Once he was certain the man with the flashlight was out of sight, he’d head to the safety of the woods.
Tremors raced through him as fear and relief battled for control of his muscles.
Sabotage was not a job for cowards.
35
Antioch
Saturday, March 17, 1945
“Oh, Allie, he’s beautiful.” Helen held two-week-old Francis Raymond Novak on her shoulder, rubbed her cheek on the soft dark fuzz on his head, and inhaled the smell of milk and talc and baby goodness.
“I can’t get enough of him.” Allie’s face glowed, and she eased herself down onto the couch.
Helen sat next to her and cradled Frankie. He stretched long, skinny fingers and groped the air around his face. One hand smashed onto his cheek. Helen laughed. “I’d forgotten how funny newborns are. Look at his little hands.”
“And that serious old man face.” Allie scrunched up her forehead in imitation.
They laughed together. Over the last few months, Helen had come to see why Betty liked Allie so much.
Jay-Jay leaned over the baby. “I look like dat?”
“Yes, but you didn’t even have fuzz. You were completely bald.”
Blue eyes rounded. Jay-Jay patted his head and sighed in relief, then returned to the toy soldiers on the parlor floor.
Helen gave Allie a hesitant look. “Your parents—have they . . . ?”
Allie shook her head and tucked in her lips. “I sent a telegram, but they haven’t responded. They can’t forgive me, but I’ve forgiven them, and that’s all I can do.”
Helen gazed into Frankie’s large, wise eyes. “Their loss.” Then she raised a smile. “Walt must be thrilled.”
“I know. I wish he could be here. But he’s where he needs to be, doing his part for the country and being there for Jack.”
Frankie’s fingers rolled around Helen’s pinky as grief rolled around her heart. “How are they doing?”
Allie let out a long sigh. “Walt’s holding up, I think, but Jack feels so guilty. He determined the order of the B-17s that day.”
Helen frowned. She never thought anyone else might feel responsible.
Allie picked up a receiving blanket draped on the arm of the sofa. “Plenty of guilt in the Novak family right now.”
“How so?”
Allie folded the blanket. “Pastor Novak wanted all three sons to follow him into the ministry. Walt was the first rebel when he chose to be an engineer. Then Jack decided to stay in the military, which upset his father. Now the only son who wanted to be in ministry is gone. Poor Pastor Novak thinks he’s being punished for his pride.”
“Oh no. But that doesn’t make sense.”
Helen sucked in her breath. Her guilt didn’t make sense either.
She wasn’t responsible for Jim’s death, and she wasn’t responsible for Ray’s. His internal struggle drove him to combat, and he chose to fly a second tour. Besides, he’d grown in confidence and courage and strength. Maybe he did need to go. At least he died at peace.
Helen stroked the baby’s soft cheek. Her shoulders felt lighter without the load of misplaced blame. For Ray’s sake—and hers—she needed to continue healing, to find the contentment Ray had. Once she married Vic, she’d have more time to rest at the Lord’s feet.
“Good morning, Helen. Hi, Jay-Jay.” Mrs. Novak slipped into the parlor and sat in the wing chair. She’d aged several years in the last two months, but a smile brightened her face as she gazed at her grandson. “He’s darling, isn’t he?”
Helen smiled. “Absolutely precious.”
“The Lord knew what we needed.” Mrs. Novak gazed to the window where the family service flag hung, with two stars of blue and one of heartbreaking gold. “ ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ ”
Helen’s throat clamped shut.
Mrs. Novak jerked back her gaze and smiled. “And the Lord is giving once again. We’re looking forward to having your friend Esther stay with us. She arrives Monday.”
“She’s so thankful you’ll have her. The housing shortage made it hard to find a room in the area, and discrimination made it even worse.”
“She’s gathering evidence for another appeal?”
“For Thurgood Marshall with the NAACP. He’ll take it straight to Washington DC. This job is good for her. She can use her skills and help her husband as well.”
Mrs. Novak nodded and gazed around as if distracted. “I—I have something for you.”
“Oh?”
“Jack sent a box of—of Ray’s things. A while back. I couldn’t bear to go through them.” She picked her way over Jay-Jay’s battlefield to the piano, where a stack of envelopes sat beside Ray’s service portrait.
Grief hit Helen in the breastbone and stole her breath. She’d avoided looking at the portrait until now. Never again would she bask in his smile or graze the stubble on his cheek.
Mrs. Novak faced Helen with her mouth in a puckered line. “These are the letters you wrote him.”
Helen drew in a ragged breath.
Allie took the baby out of her arms, and Mrs. Novak set the letters in the hollow, warm space Frankie had vacated.
Helen hugged the letters to her chest. “I loved him, Mrs. Novak.” She gasped from the pain, the release of saying it out loud for the first time.
Mrs. Novak’s eyes glistened. “He loved you too.”
Helen ducked her head so she wouldn’t voice disrespect by disagreeing. Ray hadn’t loved her in a romantic way, but he’d shown the best kind of love—the open, giving love of a true friend.
Lechfeld
Monday, March 19, 1945
“Have you heard whether we’re moving?”
“Nein, but soon we must.”
Ray eased behind two officers as they walked between buildings on the airfield. Something big was happening, with several air raids and missions recently, big enough to coax him onto the base for information, a stony expression on his face to discourage conversation. He felt like Gideon infiltrating the Midianite camp before battle.
“We must move and hide our planes,” the taller officer said. “They know we have not enough fuel, and the cowards shoot our planes on the ground.”
The shorter officer smacked him in the arm. “Ach, we also shoot their planes. And we destroyed the bridge over the Rhine at Remagen.”
“That was an Arado 234, not a Messerschmitt, and the next day the Americans built a Ponton bridge.”
Ray’s chest expanded. Ponton? Did that mean pontoon? Regardless, the Americans were crossing the Rhine, the most German of rivers. But the Rhine lay a good hundred miles to the west. He hardened his face again.
The officers stopped and saluted a young pilot—very young. “Hallo, Reinhardt. Are you going to the film?”
Ray stopped and dug around in his breast pocket as if he were a smoker in search of cigarettes.
Reinhardt stood tall under his stiff salute. “Ja. Then I can fly the Schwalbe.”
A training film for the Me 262? Ray’s lips tingled. He spun and followed the teenage pilot at a distance. Every day the idea of commandeering a plane grew in his head, fed by hunger, sickness, and weakness. The night before, he’d eaten his last potato. Now the Lord had delivered this film into his hands.
Ray paused. Would he be allowed in? They’d check identification, and Johannes Gottlieb wouldn’t be on the list. Or worse, someone would know Johannes, and it would all be over.
He huffed away the thought and forged ahead. If someone checked Reinhardt’s papers, Ray would walk away.
Reinhardt met some buddies, and they jostled each other like American boys, except these men were training to shoot down American boys.
They approached a building, where a guard stood at the door, and Ray sighed and veered to the side. But the guard let the pilots in with a lazy salute. Did the guard know them? Or would someone inside check identification?
Ray
marched forward. If they asked, he’d poke in his pockets, look horrified not to find his papers, and leave. The Lord had given him the opportunity, and he had to seize it.
At the threshold, his heartbeat accelerated. The guard’s gaze rolled over the shoulder boards of Ray’s overcoat, golden yellow with silver wire stripes and a single silver star for Johannes’s first lieutenant’s rank. The guard’s arm rose like a drawbridge.
Ray’s heartbeat eased down a notch, and he saluted and entered the building.
No check-in table. No man with a clipboard. Just a few dozen chairs facing a screen flanked by portraits of Hitler and Goering. Before he could lose courage, Ray picked an empty row and sat next to the wall behind a large, dark-haired boy who would shield Ray well.
He crossed his arms over his concave chest and put on his least friendly look.
The men’s conversation rose through a haze of pungent cigarette and pipe smoke, but not with the nervous exuberance Ray had seen in his trainees in Texas. A palpable mood of fatalism pressed on the room. From Ray’s perspective, Luftwaffe losses seemed high, and airmen would know better than the average German about Allied progress.
These boys were so young, teenagers all of them. How many would survive the month, much less the war? How many knew the saving grace of Jesus Christ?
Ray clenched his stick arms. If only he could tell them. But one full sentence from his mouth would label him a spy and wouldn’t lead anyone to the Lord.
An officer strode down the center aisle, a captain, and the trainees sprang to their feet, salutes angled high. Ray joined them, and he had a strange sensation of being in a Nazi newsreel.
When the captain told them to be seated, Ray centered his face behind the head of the man in front of him. Thank goodness, the captain gave a quick introduction, and the film rolled.
He strained to tune his ears to the voices in the film. They spoke quickly and used unfamiliar words, though his translation of the manual had expanded his vocabulary.
The film instructor stood on the wing of the plane and showed the student the equipment in the cockpit, then showed him how to start the engines, a complex process. The throttles had to be pushed forward very slowly—that wasn’t in the manual—and fuel was injected using push buttons on the sides of the throttle handles.
Ray drank it in, warm and invigorating as coffee. He could do it. He could fly one of these planes. In the chaos of a scramble, he could do it.
He had to try. Sure, he might be caught or die in a fiery crash, but if he stayed, he’d also die. He could be discovered, or shot by the Allies as he tried to surrender, or keep dying this long death of starvation. He’d rather die in an effort to help his country.
Besides, he was already dead to Helen and his family. They had mourned him and were moving on with their lives, which made his heart feel as hollow as his stomach.
Yet out of the hollowness unfurled a flag of liberation. As a dead man, he was free to do things he’d never considered when alive.
In the film, the student hopped out of the plane, and he and his instructor walked into the distance, using the pilot’s universal language of swooping arm motions.
The captain dismissed the class, and Ray joined the throng, careful to keep his head down.
When he stepped outside, an air raid siren pierced the air.
A cry rang out among the trainees, and they took off running. Ray ran too, but not with the crowd. They’d seek shelter since they weren’t ready to scramble yet.
Neither was Ray. He needed the flight jacket and helmet, the manual, and a bit more courage. But the air raid gave him a chance to commit his most ambitious sabotage plan.
He ran for the edge of the airfield where a fuel tanker stood. When it had arrived the day before, the men greeted it like children cheering Santa in the Christmas parade. Fuel was the Nazi’s main weakness, and knocking out one tanker would be like knocking out dozens of jets. If it blew up in an air raid, no one would suspect sabotage.
A Rolls-Royce Merlin engine throbbed to the north, and the base’s antiaircraft guns opened in ear-numbing booms.
Ray scanned the field, but no one looked his way. Despite his shaky hands, he pulled Johannes’s pistol from the holster and leveled it at the tanker.
A flash of silver, and a P-51 Mustang streaked past, popping destruction with six .50 caliber machine guns.
Ray fired a shot. He flung himself to the ground, curled up with his back to the tanker.
No explosion.
He groaned and sat up. Swell, he’d missed.
In the distance, smoke rose from a shot-up Me 262. A glimmer caught Ray’s eye, a golden line dripping from the tanker.
He frowned and walked over. A ragged hole cut into the tanker, fuel streamed out, and Ray coughed from the fumes. His shot hit square in the middle, a great shot. So why didn’t it blow up? It worked in the movies.
He sighed. He had matches, but he could toss one only a few feet. That would be the death of him. If only he could light a fuse. He glanced around and spotted a stack of oil drums and gas cans.
Someone cried out, and he snapped up his gaze. People pointed north, not at Ray, and ran away. To the north, three whirling propellers approached.
If he didn’t act fast, he’d lose his chance. He grabbed a gas can and poured a trail leading out from the puddle under the tanker.
He tossed the gas can under the tanker and pulled out his matchbox. Adrenaline locked his fingers. He struck the match over and over, but it didn’t light.
The first Mustang charged down the field and left another jet in a mangled heap.
Ray breathed out a prayer and struck the match again. A spark, and it leaped to life. He touched the match to the trail of fuel.
Orange fire raced toward the tanker. Ray sprinted in the other direction, his weakened legs threatening to crumple.
Behind him, two P-51s roared past. Bullets hit a staccato beat on the ground.
A wall of heat and sound slammed into him, threw him to his face on the tarmac. He wrapped his arms around his head. A searing hurricane blasted over.
Then it was gone.
Ray felt the back of his head. Still had his hair, even his hat. He pushed himself up.
The tanker had been replaced by a raging inferno, a dragon belching out a tower of flame and black smoke.
Ray laughed. What would Helen think? He hadn’t slain a dragon. He’d created one.
36
Port Chicago
Wednesday, March 21, 1945
“Mutiny?” the brochure read. “The real story of how the Navy branded 50 fear-shocked sailors as mutineers.”
Helen handed the pamphlet back to Esther. “They did a nice job. This will open a lot of eyes.”
“That’s the NAACP’s plan.” Esther took a seat across from Helen’s desk. “When Thurgood Marshall files the appeal in Washington, the Legal Defense and Educational Fund plans to distribute these, circulate petitions, the works.”
Helen scraped a pile of papers from her desk. “Carver must be proud of you.”
Esther shrugged one shoulder. “He’s glad I’m occupied. When I think of my husband in a prison cell—well, I have to do something. I can’t sit still.”
Helen opened the file cabinet. “Then you won’t mind if I file while we chat.”
“I’d hardly expect you to sit still either.”
“Lieutenant Llewellyn will be back any minute.” She slipped a paper into the W section. “He’ll help you track down those documents.”
“It’s so frustrating. Carver’s documents should be at the Judge Advocate General’s office in DC after the lieutenant filed his individual appeal in December. But the staff has been less than helpful, and Mr. Marshall wants to file the group appeal April 3.”
“Bureaucratic stonewalling coupled with discrimination. You’ll need extra prayer to break down that barrier.” Only one paper under Y, none under Z.
“With God and the lieutenant on our side, I know we’ll prevail. Wh
at a blessing that man is to us. To you as well.” She tossed out the words with a playful lilt.
Helen smiled over her shoulder. “Yes, he is.”
“He’s the best sort of man. He’ll treat you and your boy right.”
“He already has.” Vic had rented a sweet little bungalow on Fifth Street and was paying for Helen to furnish it. Each piece of furniture, each yard of cloth for curtains, each dish made his face glow.
In thirty-seven days she would leave the Carlisle home and come under the protection of a man who adored her, a man she was growing increasingly fond of. The role of Mrs. Victor Llewellyn would be an easy role after all.
The file folders in the back slouched under the forward files. Helen boosted them up. The one in the rear read “St. Jude.”
“Oh brother.” Helen plucked it out. Vic had a brilliant legal mind but he had no business filing.
The door swung open. “Hello, sweet—” Vic stopped short. “Oh, hello, Esther. I didn’t expect you.”
She offered her hand and a smile. “Can’t a lady visit a dear old friend?”
He shook her hand and grinned. “Old? I feel younger every day.” He winked at Helen.
She smiled, rolled her eyes, and glanced at the folder. St. Jude? Unusual. She couldn’t remember a client with that name.
“I hope you can help us untangle the red tape tying up Carver’s documents in DC.”
“I’ll do what I can, but no promises.” Vic entered his office and set down his briefcase. “Marshall may have taken up a lost cause.”
“I disagree,” Esther said. “Any logical person looking at the facts can see the injustice.”
“Logic has nothing to do with this.” Vic leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “It took me long enough, but now I see this case was never about justice but about politics. You’ll never sway the Navy. After race riots in Detroit, Mobile, Harlem, LA—the Navy decided to crack down on the Port Chicago Boys. Justice? They trampled it for the sake of peace.”
“They made their point.” Esther drew herself taller. “Now on the appeal, justice can be done.”