The Long Flight Home

by Alan Hlad

  Susan quietly put on her coat, slipped outside, and took a seat on the porch. In the distance, a red glow of fires surrounded London as dozens of searchlights scanned the sky for Luftwaffe. A mix of desperation and guilt filled her soul. Why did I let him leave? Why did I let her out of my sight? She struggled to convince herself that Ollie would return. A pang of loneliness tugged at her heart. She rubbed her hand over the porch step, where Ollie had sat with her the night before, and she began to fear that she might have lost the love of her life. She wiped water from her eyes and prayed that Ollie would drive up the lane and Duchess would flutter from the birches. But by morning, neither had come.

  CHAPTER 25

  EPPING, ENGLAND

  The predawn chirping of sparrows caused Susan to raise her head from her lap. She rubbed her eyes and saw the McCrearys’ lorry parked in front of the lofts, sending a jolt through her body. Ollie. Duchess. She stood, her joints stiff from the cold, and blew warm air over her fingers. How long did I sleep? A few minutes? An hour?

  The farm was eerily calm, the sky clear of searchlights and Luftwaffe. But the echoes of war remained etched into her consciousness like the grooves of a phonograph record. A pang in her eardrums. A vibration under her feet. A looming sense of doom. She wondered if she would spend her life, whatever might remain of it, reliving memories of exploding bombs.

  A soft cooing joined the choir of wild birds in the forest. She went to a loft and found many of the pigeons, the fortunate ones that had not yet been drafted for a mission, flocked on the earthen floor. They jutted their heads and circled the feeding tray. She hoped to see Duchess perched on the grain barrel, but there was only the rusted feeding can and wooden spoon. She picked up a pigeon and stroked its wings. It blinked and cooed. Gently returning the pigeon to the floor, she scooped grains into the feeding tray. The pigeons flooded the floor and pecked.

  The other lofts were the same. No Duchess. And the sight of all the empty cubbies made her eyes water. Be an egg, she thought. She tended to the hatchlings, squabs, and nursing parents, and went inside to check on Bertie.

  The squeak of the door caused Bertie to sit up and rub sand from his eyes.

  She unbuttoned her coat, hoping her grandfather wouldn’t realize she had spent most of the night on the porch.

  “You’re up early,” he said, yawning.

  She hung her coat on a rack and went to his chair. “How’re the knees?”

  He removed the towels and pressed his kneecaps. “Splendid.”

  “They’re still swollen,” Susan said, noticing that one knee was bigger than the other. “Stay off your feet today.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He slowly stood, leaning most of his weight on the chair. “Did you sleep?”

  Susan shook her head.

  “I’ll make us some tea.” He hobbled to the kitchen.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “I need to get these old bones moving.” His feet shuffled over the floor. Before making it to the stove, he stopped at the sound of an approaching engine.

  Susan jerked when she heard the unmistakable sound of Bertie’s truck—slipping gears and the metallic ping of pistons. She threw open the door and ran outside. A flash of hope washed over her as she saw their truck, followed by a military vehicle, coming up the lane. The truck slowed to a stop in front of the cottage. She jumped down from the porch and ran to the driver’s door. Her heart sank when a soldier stepped out.

  “Where’s Ollie?” she asked, not recognizing the soldier.

  The soldier slipped his cap from his head and squeezed it in his hands like he was ringing out a washrag. “I don’t know, miss.”

  Bertie emerged from the cottage and said, “He was with the soldiers delivering the pigeons.”

  The soldier looked at the old man and shrugged.

  A soldier driving the accompanying military vehicle joined his comrade. He glanced at Susan, then looked at Bertie and said, “We don’t know where he is. We were ordered to return the lorry.” He pointed to the tent. “We’ve been assigned here for the duration of the mission.”

  Bertie gingerly stepped down from the porch and hobbled, his legs bowed like the forearms of an old bulldog. “You must have been told something,” he said, approaching the men.

  “Only that the lorry was left at the airfield and that its driver was presumed to have fled during the attack.” He handed the key to Bertie.

  “Presumed?” Susan asked. “Something’s wrong. He didn’t come home.”

  “That’s all we know, I’m afraid.” The soldier returned the cap to his head. “If you’ll excuse us, we need to set up and check the alarms.” The soldiers retrieved olive-green canvas bags from their vehicle and disappeared into the tent.

  Bertie put his arm around Susan and walked her inside.

  She watched him check the telephone line, which was still not working, but it likely didn’t matter. She knew there would be no use in contacting North Weald Airfield. The RAF had more important things to do than search for a missing American or a pet pigeon.

  “Come on,” he said, reaching for his coat.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To check the hospital.”

  The words stung her. She quickly retrieved his walking stick and followed him out the door.

  After returning the McCrearys’ lorry, which they simply left in the drive with the key under the seat, they drove to St. Margaret’s Hospital in Epping. The parking lot of the small brick community hospital was filled, so she resorted to parking along the street. She got out, removed Grandfather’s walking stick from the back of the truck, and found him already standing on the curb.

  “I’d rather use your arm, my dear,” Bertie said.

  Susan returned the stick and looped her arm around his elbow. She knew he should be off his feet or at the very least using a cane. But selfishly, she felt comforted to help him. And it briefly occurred to her that Bertie knew this as well.

  As they approached the entrance, an ambulance, followed by a civilian truck with three men sitting in the bed, pulled to the front of the building. Medics ran to the rear of the ambulance, flung open the door, and slid out a stretcher. Although the body was completely covered, it was the rounded belly protruding from under the gray wool blanket that made Susan freeze. She gripped Bertie’s arm.

  “Bloody hell,” he whispered.

  Susan wanted to turn her head but felt compelled to watch the men leap from the back of the truck and remove another woman wearing a soiled nightgown. Thin legs covered in deep cuts and scratches dangled from the stretcher. The woman, clearly pregnant and in labor, hugged her swollen stomach and cried, “No! It’s too early!”

  The injured women were rushed inside. The vehicles raced off, the ambulance leading the way with its blaring siren. Susan desperately wanted to go home. But she forced herself to take one step, then another, and another, until they reached the door.

  Inside, the doctors and nurses were in a frenzy treating survivors from Sprigg’s Oak Maternity Home. They overheard that a parachute mine had struck a wing where staff and expectant mothers who had no air-raid shelter were taking refuge.

  “How many?” Bertie asked a gray-haired orderly retrieving a gurney.

  The orderly stopped, his eyes dark and sunken from lack of sleep. “At least a dozen. More, counting the babies.” He sniffed and cleared his throat. “They’re still digging them out.”

  Susan cupped her mouth.

  “Good Lord,” Bertie said.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Susan asked.

  The orderly wiped his face. “Pray for them.”

  Bertie placed his hand on the orderly’s shoulder. “Was anyone brought in from North Weald Airfield?”

  He shook his head. “They were sent to RAF Hospital Ely.”

  Susan watched the orderly grab the gurney and push it down the hallway. The squeaking wheels sent shivers up her spine.

  She left St. Margaret’s Hospital, realizing the war had come to Epping
. As they drove in silence to RAF Hospital Ely, she couldn’t stop thinking about the expectant mothers who had come to Sprigg’s Oak from London, seeking a safe place to deliver their babies. They were bringing life into a world of war. And the Luftwaffe had found them. Not only had someone lost a mother, a daughter, or a wife, they had also lost an unborn baby. She turned to ask Bertie for his handkerchief and saw that he was using it to dry his eyes.

  They arrived at RAF Hospital Ely before noon. Even in the waiting area, the smell of ether and antiseptic made Susan want to hold her breath. They stood in a long line waiting for a receptionist, fielding questions from relatives desperately trying to learn about a son or husband. As they inched forward in line, the thought of Ollie possibly being injured turned her body weak. Goose bumps rose on her skin. Her legs felt like twigs about to snap. She clasped Bertie’s arm to keep her hands from trembling. When they reached the front of the line, the receptionist scanned her papers and said, “We have no civilians here, in particular an American brought in from North Weald.”

  “Are you certain?” Susan asked. “His name is Ollie Evans.”

  “Oliver,” Bertie added.

  The receptionist looked again through her papers and shook her head. “I’m afraid we have no one by those names.”

  A nurse overhearing the conversation approached the receptionist and said, “What about the burn patient?”

  Susan’s heart palpitated.

  “I thought he was an airman,” the receptionist said.

  “He was recovered near a plane with no identification.” The nurse adjusted the cuffs on her long-sleeved uniform and approached Bertie. “Is he a relative?”

  “My grandson,” Bertie said. “He’s come from Maine to help us with our farm. He was making a delivery at North Weald at the time of the attack.”

  Susan looked at Bertie, his eyes remaining focused on the nurse.

  “Would you be willing to identify a patient?” the nurse asked. “You should know that he’s badly burned, heavily sedated, and can’t speak.”

  Susan’s body shuddered. She struggled to breathe.

  Bertie swallowed, then nodded.

  “Follow me,” the nurse said.

  Susan took her grandfather’s hand. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, my dear.”

  “Please.”

  He shook his head.

  Susan took a seat in a waiting area as Bertie followed the nurse. The tapping of their shoes against the tile floor faded, and Susan became aware of moans and whimpers filtering the hallways. Young men, their bodies battered, broken, burned, and severed. Their lives cut short or, at best, changed forever. She closed her eyes, slipped her fingers into her ears, and tried to pray.

  After several minutes, Bertie returned, his feet slowly shuffling over the floor. Susan noticed the lines on his face seemed deeper, as if he had aged from the visit to the ward. Her hands trembled. She looked into her grandfather’s weary eyes and spoke, her voice able to produce only a whisper. “Ollie?”

  CHAPTER 26

  GERMAN-OCCUPIED FRANCE

  Ollie opened his eyes to a setting sun that painted the clouds a beautiful hue of pink. Am I dead? Any notion that he had passed and was ascending, or descending, to an afterlife, were quickly eliminated by the acrid scent of aviation fuel filling his nostrils. Something dripped, then hissed, like a water droplet hitting a hot skillet. I gotta get out of here.

  He twisted his neck, stiff from the impact, and noticed that the fuselage roof had been sheared away. Jagged metal teeth loomed over him. His foot throbbed. A heavy metal box pressed against his side, cutting off the circulation to his arm and turning his hand numb. With his good arm, he pushed over the box, spilling ribbons of ammunition onto the floor.

  The returning blood flow burned like a hot poker shoved into his shoulder socket. His wrist protruded from the cuff of his jacket, as if his arm had grown. He touched his sunken shoulder and immediately realized it was dislocated, or worse. He sat up, trying to avoid moving his arm, and examined the rest of his body. A large bump protruded from the back of his head. His nose was bleeding. And his foot, twisted in the machine-gun turret, was badly swollen. But he was alive. A miracle, considering the rate of the descent.

  He scanned the plane or, more precisely, what was left of it. The tail was cracked and partially separated from the fuselage. The gunner’s body lay tangled in the cargo net, like a fly spun in a spider’s cocoon. A flash of applying bandages to the man’s punctured abdomen, the helplessness of watching him bleed out, no matter how hard he pressed. The hole was too big, his hands too small. Ollie shook away the image and turned his attention to his shoulder.

  He clasped his clavicle and tried popping his shoulder into place but could only manage to raise his arm a few inches before spasms tore into his shoulder blade. His arm burned, like his nerves had been set on fire. He clenched his teeth. I can’t just leave my shoulder like this. Before he could change his mind, he wrapped his wrist in the cargo net and gripped the webbing. The dead gunner dangled above him. Ollie’s heart pounded. His ears thumped with rushing blood. He bit his lip and leaned back. His arm stretched. Tendons strained. He braced his legs against the fuselage and pulled harder. Excruciating pain ravaged his shoulder. But his arm didn’t pop into place.

  He eased off his weight, untangled his wrist, and fell back. He sucked in gulps of air until the pain subsided to a dull pang. Wiping sweat from his brow, he looked to the cockpit. Limbs of a large oak tree had pierced the cockpit glass and sprouted toward the gunner’s turret. His heart sank. They couldn’t have survived that. But he heard something faint, masked by whistling wind over shards of metal. He listened. Moaning.

  Ollie got to his knees and crawled toward the cockpit, his useless arm hanging at his side. Another spasm spiked into his shoulder. With one hand, he struggled to break away branches and thick limbs, and realized it would take him too long to reach the pilots at this pace, especially with the growing smell of fuel. So he wriggled through the crack in the fuselage and slid to the ground. As he stood, pain shot through his ankle.

  He steadied himself against a broken wing, its engine ripped away and sitting in the field like a fallen meteorite. A deep rut ran through the field from the skidding Blenheim, abruptly stopped by trees bordering a forest. He limped to the front of the plane, feeling his swelling ankle press against his boot.

  The Blenheim had severed a tree, most of which was gouged into the cockpit. He climbed onto the nose, taking several attempts to find his footing, and cleared away chunks of glass. He stuck his head inside and immediately realized there was nothing he could do for the copilot. A sharp limb, launched like a wooden javelin, protruded from the man’s neck. A St. Christopher medallion dangled over his jacket. Ollie winced and turned to the pilot.

  Flight Lieutenant Boar was slumped to the side, his face and neck covered in blood from a deep vertical gash across his right eye, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. He appeared dead, until Ollie grabbed his flight jacket.

  Boar grunted and cracked open his good eye, if one could call it that, the socket red and bulbous, his eyelid swelled shut. “Ralph?”

  “Dead,” Ollie said.

  “Bloody hell.” He coughed and extended a hand toward his copilot but stopped short of touching him.

  Ollie unbuckled the lieutenant’s harness.

  Boar grimaced.

  “Can you move?” Ollie asked.

  Boar struggled to wipe blood from his eyes. “It seems I don’t have a choice, Yank.”

  Realizing that he would have to remove the lieutenant through the windshield, Ollie cleared away the rest of the glass using the sleeve of his jacket. He wedged a hand under Boar’s arm and pulled. Boar rolled forward. Ollie’s shoulder flared. He maneuvered Boar onto the nose of the plane, then slid him to the ground.

  Boar fell to his back. He struggled to stand, then sat back down.

  Ollie slid down from the cockpit and examined Boar, but there wasn’t much
he could see because of all the blood covering his face. He ripped away the tail of his shirt and placed it over Boar’s eye. “Keep pressure on it.”

  Boar cupped the fabric to his face. “You hurt?”

  “Ankle.” Ollie touched his shoulder. “And my arm’s hanging loose.”

  “Broken?”

  “Not sure.” Ollie looked around. To the west, the sun was sinking below a large field, dotted with mounds of straw. Beyond a hill, a thin stream of rising smoke, possibly from a farmhouse chimney or another downed Blenheim. To the east, thick woods. It’d be dark soon. Twenty, perhaps thirty minutes. “Where are we?”

  Before Boar could respond, a distant shout echoed over the hill.

  “Beeilung!”

  Adrenaline shot through Ollie.

  “France.” Boar unzipped his jacket and fumbled to unsnap a pistol from its holster. “Somewhere between Amiens and Abbeville.”

  Ollie got to his feet, most of his weight on one leg.

  “Where you gonna run, Yank?”

  “Who you gonna shoot?” Ollie pulled Boar to his feet. “You can’t see.”

  Boar gripped his pistol, his breath in heavy gasps.

  “Your legs work?”

  Boar nodded.

  Ollie looked for someplace to run. But there were no houses. No roads. Only a dirt trail that led from the far end of the field to a hill where the voice came from. And in the opposite direction, the forest.

  “Beeilung!” The shout was louder. Closer.

  Ollie’s heart pounded against his rib cage. His first instincts were to run into the trees, the logical place to hide. But something deep down inside him caused him stop, if only for a second. Where will they search first? Second? He scanned a ravaged wheat field, which made him think the farmer was in hiding or had fled from the German invasion. Many of the stalks appeared to be randomly ripped out, likely from hungry French citizens scavenging for food, leaving behind piles of rotting stalks. Before he could change his mind, he pulled Boar with him.