Robert survived out of habitual adherence to the procedures he was responsible for enforcing. The soldiers on his flights, however, were always careless with safety—they had either survived their duty in the Aleutians and felt invincible or were celebrating their upcoming leave and were distracted. Red’s order to buckle up during turbulence wasn’t followed by everyone and those men had no idea how to don their parachute. Robert always put his on. In this case it was a simple matter of pulling the rip cord after being catapulted from the ship by the centrifugal force seconds after impact.
CHAPTER 40
The sergeant from Harlem was Charles Biggs. He struggled with his orientation once on the ground due partly to his inebriation but mainly from the lack of contrast with the flat light. The snow mounds, drop-offs, and slopes were very hard to make out. He sobered quickly after sitting a few minutes, bewildered with his freak luck in surviving. He barely remembered what had happened other than the abrupt ending in a deep snow bank. Unbelievable, he thought. In the foreground he could see the horrific crash site several hundred yards away. Instinctively, he began the effort of crawling, stumbling, and walking toward the C-47 fuselage in anticipation of helping survivors and providing aid. The winter sun’s light would be lost soon when it set behind the peaks. The elevation made it very hard to breath and progress was slow in the deep snow. In reality, he was homing in on the C-47 as a source of help more than a place to help—an undefined hope for an answer to what had happened. His inexperience in flying provided only a general knowledge of survival gear and emergency communication devices that may be on board.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he said in utter disbelief when he arrived on the scene. From his vantage point he could see a handful of men still strapped in their seats, dead from the impact or dead from some secondary collision with flying objects throughout the fall. The smell of blood was pervasive. In one case, a soldier he had been playing cards and drinking with sat motionless, his head split wide open. With the ship’s fuselage on its side, the dead soldiers were like marionettes hanging from their seatbelts—lifeless—without a puppeteer to bring them to life.
“God, what do I do now?” he exclaimed, looking for anyone alive.
“We survive. That’s what we do.” The weak voice was that of the major, still strapped in near the front, down-side of the tilted fuselage.
Sergeant Biggs recognized the major immediately and went to him. “I think it’s just us, Major. Let me help you get loose from your harness,” the sergeant said while trying to blow warmth into his hands and fingers. He removed a coat from one of the other soldiers for more protection.
“No, Sergeant. I can’t move. Too busted up … likely a broken back. There may be no way out of this cluster fuck, but the way I see it is that we’re going to freeze to death if we don’t stay warm.”
“How about removing that bag cuffed to your wrist first?”
“No. It’s fine. Leave it.”
“What do you propose, Major? My experience is limited here. By the way, my men call me Sarge.”
“Alright. Sarge it is. It seems like we have a natural shelter in this broken fuselage if we can somehow find a way to close it up to protect us from the wind and drifts.”
“I’d like to get the bodies out first,” Sarge commented. “I’m not so sure I can be in here with them all night.”
The major nodded in agreement.
Robert still had the jump seat underneath him as he was ripped from the plane seconds after impact. It wasn’t thoughtfulness that caused him to pull the ripcord to his parachute, but rather an instinctive reaction to the immediate sense of falling. A cloud of snow filled the air from the ship’s impact on the sheer wall, making it impossible to tell up from down. He didn’t think; he just pulled, and the yank of the chute opening snapped him into the moment. The last thing he remembered was Vladimir taking over the cockpit and the blank stares of disbelief and anger from the men in the main cabin. Now, as he fell, he could feel the conflicting effects of the downdraft and crosswinds as they had their way with the chute during his descent. The artificial snow cloud vanished as quickly as it was created, and Robert actually witnessed the fall of the ship in rough parallel to his own descent. Debris followed the crash like a Macy’s Day Parade. The wing and tail assembly was ripped from the housing. He was sure that he saw at least two bodies thrown from the opening in the fuselage. The sight was horrible and an intense fear choked any thoughts for his own safety. He battled the fierce winds, which made his lack of experience with the chute even more obvious. The winds blew him toward an enormous crevasse from which any escape would be unlikely. Mercifully, at the last minute a strong gust grabbed hold of the chute and carried it across the huge bottomless opening, depositing him in a heap a mere fifteen feet from the rim. Luck couldn’t begin to describe his good fortune. He quickly reeled in the nylon to avoid being dragged back into the chasm by the winds. At least for the moment, he felt fortunate as he prepared for his arduous hike to the ship some distance away across the snowfield. Robert sat on a snow-covered rock pile, gazing at a most remarkable scene of destruction, questioning the probability of his survival.
As he got closer to the fuselage, he was encouraged to see movement inside the wreckage. Quickly, however, he remembered that he would be seen as the enemy. The pistol still in its holster gave him some comfort, but he would still be vulnerable when he slept, if he chose to seek the protection of the wreckage. He remembered an old-timer telling a story about being stranded for days on an ice flow and how a small igloo was able to insulate him from sub-freezing temperatures. It’s getting dark, Robert thought. Need to act quickly. Nearby where he landed was a four- to five-foot mound of snow that might work. He trudged over to inspect it. He was happy when he saw that the mound was completely crusted over. This will be perfect if I can just break through a side and hollow it out, he thought.
He studied the mound and found a spot downwind where the side had a soft spot. Carefully, he kicked in an opening about the size of a manhole cover and started burrowing into his new home. He paced himself in his efforts, careful not to overheat, as he knew that the perspiration would accelerate hypothermia. He retrieved the jump seat and used it as a door to block him from the elements. The parachute acted as a mattress cover and kept him from getting wet from the snow melted by his body heat. Not perfect, he thought, but I think it will work. The stress of the last few hours drained from his body, and he fell sound asleep.
Removing the dead bodies proved to be more of a task than anticipated. Sarge cleared a depression in the snow for a temporary gravesite near the fuselage. He struggled with each body. An hour went by before he was done. The exercise was a great antidote for the Jack Daniels and warmed him to a point where he removed his outer coat. He finished as darkness set in, yet he still needed to find a way to cover the gaping hole in the fuselage. This presented a challenge because there was no obvious material that would work.
“See if you can find a few parachutes,” the major said as if reading his mind.
“Great idea,” Sarge replied, relieved.
Unfortunately, most of the parachutes were gone—spread across the mountain with everything else that wasn’t tied down. He did find two, though, the one the major wore and one in the clutches of a dead soldier.
“You’re just going to have to improvise.” The major always had a way of adding a tone of certainty to his comments, although Sarge seriously doubted he was going to make it out alive.
With some effort Sarge opened the two chutes and was able to secure them across the opening. Not ideal, but passable in order to keep the wind and snow out of their makeshift quarters. He found a way to use the pull-down seats along the starboard side of the ship as a makeshift bed for himself.
“Can I get you anything, Major?”
“A few more coats around my legs would help.” His voice shook, and he was barely able to articulate the words.
While Sarge complied the major added a strange
order. “Sarge, this courier bag attached to my arm contains very sensitive and confidential material that could jeopardize the security of the United States. If I don’t make it, get the contents to General Leslie R. Groves of the 509th Composite Group. That’s an order.”
“And if I don’t make it, sir?”
“Then it will be safe here for all eternity.”
While the ship offered very little insulation from the cold, Sarge remained warm from the effects of his hard work. Despite their inadequate accommodations, the howls of the wind, and the constant buffeting noise of the parachutes, both were soon sound asleep. What the Sarge didn’t know was that his dilated capillaries from being overheated carried the excess heat to his skin. From there his damp clothes dispelled it rapidly as the night progressed. The lack of insulating fat over his lean muscled body allowed the cold to creep that much closer to his warm blood.
The major trembled violently, as the extra coats were unsatisfactory in raising his core body temperature. He fell asleep in a stupor. By 2130 his heart became arrhythmic, its electrical impulses hampered by chilled nerve tissues, and he entered into profound hypothermia. His damaged body could not fight back. By 2250 he was dead.
CHAPTER 41
“Only an explosion and fire could have made things worse,” Nick said angrily. He had been unable to dislodge himself despite his efforts. “If we weren’t stranded on top of this ridge, maybe we could get help.”
“I doubt if there are others alive,” Vladimir replied in a voice barely above a whisper. “And we may not be either if we don’t find a way to stay warm overnight.” His loss of blood was great, and there was no way he could remove the steel shaft from his body as Nick had hoped. It had entered above the right breast angling down, piercing his right lung, and exited below the right shoulder blade. His breathing was extremely shallow.
“What was all this about?” Nick asked. “A lot of people are dead because of your actions.”
“It’s not my actions; it’s your country’s actions,” Vladimir replied indignantly, yet barely audible because of his great pain. The steel shaft had supplied the additional cruelty of becoming a conductor for the below-freezing temperatures throughout his upper body.
“What are you talking about? I want a real answer.”
“If we live, I’ll show you. Look in the courier bag locked to the major’s wrist. You’ll see the answer. A plan to test an atom bomb here in Alaska, such a short distance from Russia, cannot be tolerated. It sets a stage for an attack by the United States. Such an aggressive act threatens our security and erodes our trust.”
“So that’s what all the activity in Yukon Flats was all about?”
There was no answer. Nick twisted as best he could and saw that Vladimir had passed out. He was very pale, and Nick didn’t think Vladimir would make it through the night. What if he was right? Nick thought. An atom bomb being tested within striking distance of a foreign country would certainly be cause for alarm and escalation regardless of who’s right. “God, this world’s a mess!”
He didn’t have much optimism for his own situation, either. The shock and cold had numbed the pain in his leg. He knew that even if he were rescued, he would probably lose it anyway. He looked at the radio in vain—in pieces with the rest of the instruments. Wouldn’t make any difference even if it did work, he thought, as their course over the McKinley Range had taken them off the pre-established radio vectors for flight communication channels from either Fairbanks or Anchorage. Oddly enough, however, the cockpit light responded to Nick’s habitual flip of the switch.
“Oh Martha … Martha. I don’t know if I can get out of this fix,” he half groaned, beginning to accept the reality of his predicament. He tried to remember the last time he wrote to her and what he had said but came up blank. In their last phone call he remembered being enthusiastic about Martha coming out west after the baby was born, but she was less sure because of the practicality of caring for an infant. He realized in that call that the business of their marriage had taken over the excitement of their relationship. It was for this reason he was having difficulty getting Anne out of his mind. There were still times when the very thought of losing her caused an involuntary primal ache in the pit of his stomach.
The cabin light helped him stay focused and find a way to get loose, but he was so jammed in that anything short of severing his leg seemed unlikely to work. He didn’t know if he could actually cut off his own leg. With the compound fracture and the bone protruding, however, it would only be necessary to cut through the flesh and ligaments at the point of the break, he rationalized. Thinking that he could use Red’s shirt to fasten a tourniquet just above the break to prevent excessive hemorrhaging, he began scanning the cockpit for a knife or something sharp enough to make the cut. He couldn’t find anything to perform the procedure.
Time passed with little change other than the onset of the Alaskan winter darkness and the storm. His sentinel position on top of the mountain was surreal. He was in the most god-awful situation anyone could find themselves in with half an airplane as lodging and only a single light to aid him in maintaining consciousness. He thought for a while about Bud and Helen and his parents in Staples and realized up until then his life had been charmed.
He found himself dozing off, thinking about the early days in summer as a kid fishing on Cass Lake. He and Bud would grab their cane poles, get some worms, and be gone for an entire day. He laughed, remembering that they would take their shoes off on the last day of school and barely put them back on again until September. His head snapped back as he caught himself falling into sleep—warning! If he was to survive the night he would have to stay awake, as sleep always preceded death by freezing. At least for now, his winter flight gear had kept him from getting too cold.
Nick pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and began what he thought might be a final letter to Martha.
March 17, 1944
En Route to Fairbanks
My Dearest Martha,
You may not ever read this. I’m hoping to be able to give it to you and tell you my amazing story in person. But chances are such that it may never happen. In that case the letter may be just a way for me to stay awake and think about what’s important.
We’ve crashed with little opportunity for survival. Red is dead next to me, and I am trapped somewhere in the McKinley Range with no escape. We were hijacked by a Russian militant group because of military secrets that were on board relating to the United States’ intention to detonate an atom bomb in Alaska. In total there were twenty on board: fifteen U.S. military passengers, one contract worker from Las Alamos, New Mexico, Vladimir Dubisskiy (a Russian spy), and three crew. As it turned out Warrant Officer Martin Mason and PFC Robert Endo were spies for Russia, too. To my knowledge there are only two of us alive, although I don’t know how long the other one will make it. I should be happy about that, as the other person was instrumental in executing the Russian hijack plan, but in reality I’m just sad. I’m sure he was acting under orders from Moscow. The details of their mission may never be known. What I do know is that too many have been lost in this war!
The worst part is that you and I may be separated forever. I love you and the thought of not sharing our dreams together breaks my heart. That beautiful baby of ours will not know its father and I don’t want that to happen. By the way, if it’s a boy I am partial to George … I’ve gotten used to it. If it’s a girl I’m partial to Anne . . .
His thoughts trailed off.
Is it right to pass on a name of a former lover to your child? The reflection interrupted his letter and stirred up his guilt. But Martha doesn’t know and will never know, he thought. What she does know is that Anne was a good friend. That’s all she needs to know. He continued.
Whoever it becomes, I want it to know how much I was looking forward to sharing our lives. Tell the baby about the times we had and what falling in love is really like. In any event, I know you’ll be a great mom and source of strength over
the years.
I’d like to say a word about Red, as he lies here next to me forever protected from the pain and hardships of this life. He was a true friend, a great source of humor and companionship, and a hell of a good co-pilot. Who would have ever thought that the army would have found such an outstanding airman from the dust bowls of Oklahoma? I’m sure he would have had a special saying for the predicament we’re in—just can’t think of what it would be . . .
Nick heard murmuring coming from the backseat and turned the best he could in order to see Vladimir. Nick had been eating snow to stave off dehydration and knew that Vladimir’s situation restricted such movement. Nick felt the tension from anger lessen and knew that if he could help Vladimir, he probably would. “Are you going to make it?”
“Beautiful jasmine … Okimi safety.” Vladimir wasn’t coherent, and his communication trailed off in Russian with what sounded like a request or a disrupted dream. Just inches away in his breast pocket was the picture of him and Okimi taken so many years ago. It flashed clearly in his mind’s eye and then … nothing.
Nick reached behind him for a way to check Vladimir’s pulse. The closest thing he could reach was Vladimir’s leg, behind his knee. There was nothing; he was gone. He took a deep breath, accepting the reality that he was now on his own on this dreadful mountaintop. It didn’t even have a name as far as Nick knew.
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