by Bill Mesce
“Sounds like good news.”
Korczukowski switched off the wireless. He eased himself into the squeaking swivel chair behind the wooden desk. “Patton marched into Messina this morning. Sicily’s ours.”
“That is good news.”
Korczukowski shrugged with little apparent concern. From across the hall, Harry had thought the adjutant’s rugger build intimidating, but, up close, the major was not unlike the buildings Harry could see through the screened windows behind the desk: still standing but battered, scarred. Despite the natural way his uniform hung on his broad shoulders, the admirably erect bearing, and the piercing dark eyes, Leo Korczukowski was no soldier. Like so many of his countrymen, he had only taken up the uniform in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Before that, he’d run a family business making and selling furniture, and at the time Harry met with him, more than any other time in his military service, he hungrily ached for home.
The adjutant nodded Harry toward a chair across the desk. Harry took a few steps into the office but did not sit.
He felt every bit as intrusive as he had at Halverson’s office, with that same sense of stumbling upon a mourner. He fidgeted on his feet by the proffered chair and let his eyes wander round the office, avoiding those weary, annoyed eyes across from him.
It was a small room with bare wooden walls marked by dark-colored squares where framed items had once hung. The top of the large, scuffed desk was clear but for a pack of Camels and a Zippo lighter. Behind Harry a large, framed map of Europe hung on the wall. Red ribbon marked paths Harry recognized as the approach and return courses of the Monday raid. But the major attraction was behind Korczukowski, framed by three screened windows in a hellish triptych: Donophan Airfield.
In every direction the field was pocked with the earthen blotches of filled-in bomb craters. Vehicles, blown to pieces, had been dragged into tidy rows to be stripped of usable parts. Other debris — splintered and burnt lumber, twisted metal lockers, shredded bedding, the broken eggshells of blasted Quonset huts — had been bulldozed together into tangled piles. Fire, shrapnel, and concussion had tainted everything, even those buildings still standing. And beyond that, the backhoe heaved and flexed and lifted another canvas-wrapped bundle from the dirt.
“If you’re staying,” Korczukowski said dryly, “you might as well have a seat.”
Harry lowered himself into the chair.
Korczukowski nodded at the now silent radio. “That’s all you get these days. The good news.”
Harry made a vague gesture toward the non-existent rear of the building. “You mean — ”
“This?” Harry found Korczukowski’s lazy chuckle disquieting. “This is pin money.” The adjutant drew a cigarette from the pack of Camels, flipped open the Zippo, lit the cigarette, and took a deep draught. He did not offer Harry one. “Eighth Air Force bombed the ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt and the Messerschmitt factories at Regensburg this morning. Just about the same time Patton started his parade.” Korczukowski blew a lazy stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Air Marshal Dowding calls them ‘panacea targets’. You know: ‘Knock this one out, boys, and it’ll shorten the war by six months.’ That kind of thing. Every other week somebody’s coming up with another way to shorten the war by six months. The Air Marshal has a very low opinion of panacea targets. I’m coming to share that opinion.”
“It was bad?”
“If you think sixty Forts is bad.” It was a breach of security to bring the subject up: both the raid and the losses. Korczukowski knew this, but he was drawing a line. On one side were fighting men, with the men of the 351st direct kin to the men who flew — and died — on the Schweinfurt raids. On the other side was poor old Harry: a desk jockey, a paper-pusher.
And, sitting in what looked to be the only intact piece of carpentry on that tortured piece of earth, that’s how poor old Harry felt: an outsider. He took his cap off and rubbed at the itching line it had left on his forehead.
“It looks like they’re going back,” Korczukowski continued. “To Schweinfurt, anyway. And take another beating. So you see,” and Korczukowski smiled sickly, “this really is small change.”
“I appreciate your seeing me, Major. I know this isn’t easy.”
“You’re right. It’s not.”
“I’ll try not to take too much of your time.”
“It’s a little late to be worried about the niceties, Major. I’ve got your MP’s out there sealing us in, Hans and Fritz poking around — ”
“Hans and Fritz?”
“Those two Katzenjammer Kids who work for you. I liked them better in the funny papers than hanging around here. And then last night, those storm troopers from the Provost’s came rolling in to haul Al and J.J. away.”
Harry cleared his throat. “I apologize for the way they were brought in. You should have been alerted beforehand. That was my fault.”
“No kidding. Did they ever get chow?”
“Excuse me?”
“You had them shanghaied right in the middle of evening mess.”
“I assume they’re being looked after properly.”
“Yeah. Just what are you charging them with, anyway?”
For the first time, Harry did not feel defensive. He may not have had a right to be there, but he did have an obligation. “The murder of Dennis O’Connell, and the attempted murder of two British civilians.”
“I...I didn’t know about that.”
“You’re not supposed to.”
“I see.” Korczukowski’s face sagged, and the condescending air dissipated. “I didn’t know about that,” he said again. Neither said anything for a moment, Harry leaving the other officer to his thoughts. Finally, Korczukowski sighed resignedly and drew himself up in his chair. Now, he too recognized Harry’s obligation, and his own as well. Leo Korczukowski was a man who placed great stock in those obligations. “What is it you want to know, Major?”
Before Harry could ask his first question, the wall behind Harry, the one with the map, heaved and with a loud crackling flew to one side. Harry and Korczukowski found themselves staring into the bright outdoors. The face of a soldier, hanging onto a crowbar, hung down from above. “Oops,” the soldier said. “We didn’t know anyone was in here.”
“I think we better take a walk,” Korczukowski told Harry. He collected his cigarettes and lighter and calmly led the way through the place formerly occupied by the office’s fourth wall.
A steady breeze moved across the flats of the airfield, kicking up spindrifts of dust, perhaps from the fresh earth used to fill the bomb craters, perhaps from across the field where the backhoe labored.
Korczukowski lit a fresh cigarette and looked out over the airfield grounds. There weren’t many men in sight, just a desultory few picking over the debris, or dismantling the buildings. “They’re not sure what they’re going to do with us. Save the pieces and build it up again, or just wrap it up and send it home.”
He said “home” and Harry heard the sputter of the backhoe.
Korczukowski bent his head, a debate going on within himself, then he held out the pack of Camels to Harry. Harry drew one, Korczukowski lit it for him, and they started walking again.
“What do you want to know?” the adjutant repeated.
“Tell me about Colonel Adams and Major Markham. They were good friends, I understand.”
“From the start. Not just friends. They respected each other. Frank Adams was a good commander. Fair. Not one of those brass hats likes to bark just to see you jump. But he knew he was green, that he didn’t know much more about actual combat flying than the boys under his command. Al had been logging combat time since Spain, all the way back to the beginning, I think, in ’36. Frank wasn’t going to act like a hotshot just because he had brass on his shoulder. That’s not how he was. When he didn’t know something, he turned to Al and said, ‘I don’t know; teach me.’ You could tell Al hadn’t met too many officers like that.
“You know, they actually met each othe
r — Al and Frank — long before the group was formed up. When Al and J.J. — Captain Anderson — dropped out of the Eagle Squadron to join up with our air, they were assigned to teach fighter tactics in Oklahoma. Frank was there to learn, and that’s where he bumped into Al for the first time. That would’ve been in ’41, even before Pearl. Then, they transfer Frank here, move him there — you know the way the Army does — and then they send him to Texas to head up a new group. This would’ve been last summer. Frank found out that Al had been transferred to the fighter school in San Antonio. He couldn’t think of anybody better to help him bring the group up, so he wangled a transfer for Al. He brought him on as a squadron commander. A month after we activated here he was air exec, the number two man.”
“And Anderson?”
“J.J. was Al’s idea. I think Frank thought he might be a bit much, you know? J.J.’s all right, don’t get me wrong. A little wild, upstairs and on the ground, but you get pilots like that. Feel if they’re not raising hell, why bother to get up in the morning? Al could keep him from getting in too much trouble, so Frank went along with it when he asked that J.J. come in with him. Tolerated him, I guess is the best way to put it.” Korczukowski shook his head in amusement. “Great combat flier, J.J. Lousy officer.” He paused and sighed wistfully. “This group,” he nodded at the field around them, “no matter what the roster said about who was the CO and who was the exec, Frank and Al commanded it together.” He spat out a flake of tobacco. “Not that you haven’t heard this already, but for the record: They didn’t come much better than Frank Adams, except maybe for Al Markham. I’ll tell you something else you probably already know: If there’s a better pilot than Al, you and me don’t know him. Not Bong, not Gabreski, not Boyington. Nobody’s better.”
“That’s pretty much what I’ve heard.”
“Then you heard right.”
“In fact, I’ve only heard one major criticism of Markham — ”
Korczukowski stopped and faced Harry “All that crap about Al being too close to the men? Yeah, I know about that. I’m the adjutant here, Voss. I see all the paper that goes in and out of here. Officer Fitness reports, Officer Evaluation sheets, memos, letters...You want the poop on that? Al squawked about defective tracers, gun stoppages, props running wild on takeoff...When what we had worked, he squawked about what we didn’t have: self-sealing fuel tanks, metal drop tanks, whole milk, chow that didn’t look like dog food, indoor plumbing...Sure, if you’re sitting up at Wing you start thinking, Boy, this guy Markham’s a royal pain in the can, ain’t he? He’s always up here with some beef! But we weren’t up at HQ. It didn’t look like he was being a pain to us, and it sure as hell didn’t look that way to the kids that had to go upstairs.”
The words had come in a heated burst. Belatedly, Korczukowski realized that Harry had merely made a statement, not an accusation. He began walking again.
“If it was such a big, happy family here,” Harry posed, “what about Dennis O’Connell?”
A dark cloud passed over Korczukowski’s face; he’d apparently spent much time brooding over that same subject himself. “That poor kid was a disaster waiting to happen. It didn’t take long to see it coming.”
“O’Connell wanted out of the group?”
“Toward the end seemed like week in, week out he was in my office with a new request for a transfer.”
“But Markham kept him here.”
The superior twist of Korczukowski’s lips was that of someone who knows what the interrogator fails to understand. “For one thing, Al wasn’t going to dump his problems on another outfit. You must’ve done enough nosing around to know that he wasn’t that kind of guy. For another, he didn’t think Dennis O’Connell was the foul-up everybody else figured he was. Frank Adams did. Frank went one better: he thought O’Connell was a gutless wonder, pure and simple. Wanted to bust him, tag him for Leavenworth. A lot of the other guys picked up on that, gave O’Connell a rough time. Can’t say I blame them. You go up and damned near get your tail shot off, then come home to find out this guy aborted before he even got to the Channel because some wire in his radio jiggled itself loose...or one morning he sticks his finger down his throat, pukes, and puts himself on sick call so he doesn’t have to fly. Your temper’s going to wear a little thin, right? Voss, nobody particularly gives a damn what your problems are up there. They go and you don’t, and that’s all that counts. They try and you don’t. That keeps up and one day somebody’s going to throw a punch.”
“But that’s not how Markham felt?”
“First mission, Dennis O’Connell was textbook. He scored the group’s first kill. Didn’t know that, did you? Then...something happened. Jekyll and Hyde. The kid who flew that first sortie was not the kid who flew that last one.”
“He got scared?”
Korczukowski looked surprised, then smiled his superior smile again. “Nobody wants to die, Voss. You’re fighting the cold, the g’s, the krauts, you mix it up a mile in the air and in a few minutes either you’re coming home a hero or you’re not coming home at all. Only the psycho cases aren’t scared. You’d have to be crazy not to crap in your pants up there.” Korczukowski tilted his head back and watched a flight of sparrows dart low across the field. “Sometimes they just wear out. The medics call it ‘combat fatigue.’ Or maybe O’Connell did just get scared. One day, a guy wakes up and it occurs to him if he goes out enough times the odds say he won’t come back. Whatever it is you have to put on the shelf so you can keep doing what these kids have to do, well, he couldn’t put it on the shelf; not and keep it there. He was a sensitive kid, Voss. And what makes you a good poet makes you a lousy soldier.” Korczukowski gave an embarrassed smile, self-conscious over his brief attack of lyricism. “Al tried to turn him around. He looked at how the kid started and tried to get him back to that.”
“Teach him to be a good soldier for his own good, right?”
Korczukowski studied Harry closely for a sign of skepticism. “Voss, Al tried to be there for all his men. All of them. You know, once he made air exec, his kill rate went straight down the toilet. He wasn’t up there chasing bandits anymore. He didn’t care about running up a score, not that he ever did. He was all over the sky, watching after his boys, keeping their tails clear, babying the hurt ones home. And he was up there every day he could go, more than Frank Adams wanted, more than the medics said was safe.”
“Maybe too much.”
“Maybe. Maybe Frank Adams and the medics and the brass hats at Wing were right. Maybe Al’s way wasn’t the best way to run the show. I don’t know. But that’s the way it was run here and it worked. You never get over being afraid of dying unless, like I said, you’re some kind of Section Eight. But they were never afraid to go up with him. They didn’t go up for God or the United States or FDR or the flag or their mothers. They went up for him, Voss, because he was the one who’d watch their asses.”
“So, for whatever reason, Markham wanted O’Connell kept here. And Adams let him have his way.”
“Well, they fought about it. A lot. Especially as time went by and it looked like O’Connell was getting worse. But this was Frank’s first combat command and, like I said, Al had been at this for a lot of years. I think Frank gave in to that.” Korczukowski’s face twisted.
“Something else?” Harry nudged.
“I knew that kid, Voss. I was the one he came to with his transfer requests. Whatever was eating at him, you could see he wasn’t cutting it. Sometimes he’d come in, he was practically in tears. And it was getting to the other pilots. Nobody wanted to fly with him. If O’Connell was on your wing you couldn’t trust him to keep your tail clear. Forget what it was doing to morale: Upstairs, he risked getting somebody killed. I’d think — like you — let’s just get rid of him. You don’t want to bust him, fine, let’s send him to ATC, let him fly cargo for the duration. It didn’t look like keeping him here was doing anybody any good. Including himself. I wonder about it, and I think, maybe, what it was...”
“Those things O’Connell couldn’t put on the shelf?” the adjutant continued. “Al’s been putting them there a long time. Maybe convincing O’Connell was a way of keeping himself convinced.”
They were by the cemetery now, watching the work gang. The rank of shrouded corpses had grown quite long, a corduroy road leading home.
“You know what I think hurt Al most?” Korczukowski nodded at the white bundles laid elbow to elbow. “That he couldn’t do anything to help them that night. This was a guy, when someone in his outfit went down, he wrote the letter home himself. But this...After that night, he couldn’t even look over here.”
Harry turned away from the graves. Across the field the sun touched two aluminum bodies and a pair of P-47 Thunderbolts lit up like flame.
“Those their ships?” he asked.
Korczukowski turned, saw where Harry was looking, and nodded. Without being asked, the adjutant led the way across the grass, past the blackened, roofless ribs of the hangars and the scorched revetments. Two open-backed trucks were parked by a tangled mountain of debris piled on the charred and patched grounds of the apron. Harry could see the mound was made up of what had been the aircraft of the 351st Fighter Group. Each craft had been surgically stripped of all usable parts: spinners, propellers, exhaust pipes, landing wheels, canopy stripping. The hulks themselves were being loaded piecemeal onto the trucks. They would be carted away to foundries, stripped even further, and then melted down. The aluminium would go into new aircraft bodies; the Plexiglas into new cockpits and gun blisters; the rubber into oxygen masks, truck tires, periscope eye cups; the steel into trucks, tanks, bomb casings, perhaps to wind up another burned-out hulk, to be stripped and sent through the cycle again.