* * *
I knew it was past time to start the interview. By now German radar was tracking us and vectoring any Luftwaffe squadrons in the vicinity onto our course. Pathfinders had dropped clouds of metal foil called “window” to confuse the radar operators, a ploy which usually worked. The foil reflected radar waves and made the Germans guess which blips on their oscilloscopes were real bombers. That day they guessed right.
How do you start a conversation with someone who died two hundred years before you were born? “Hello, I’m an historian from the future who wants to ask you a few questions. I know I’m semi-transparent and six inches tall, but don’t let that bother you. Please, go about your business.” I reasoned that a man born in 1922 was unlikely to respond to any overture I could make that was close to the truth.
So I lied.
I had taken a few precautions. In the weeks previous I had appeared to Edwards three times, twice at night and once in the morning. I told him I was part of a top-secret government experiment, that he shouldn’t be alarmed and that he should definitely not mention my presence to anybody. I recorded his surprisingly calm responses, analyzed them with some commercially available psychology programs, and determined that Edwards was stable enough for my purposes. Did I mention that I had already been through this preliminary phase with three other men and found them not up to the strain? I was trying to be careful.
Anyway, Edwards thought in the beginning that he’d drunk some bad liquor. The American Army of World War Two could make hooch out of almost anything, potatoes being the most common ingredient. After a few minutes of my first visit, he seemed to believe that maybe I really was part of some secret research project. None of our sessions lasted more than ten minutes, I gave him no more information than I had to, then concluded each session by telling him not to panic if I showed up again. He had a healthy skepticism, and I felt good about taking my experiment to its ultimate conclusion, namely, recording his experiences in the heat of combat. With that in mind and while bouncing in the tail-turret of the Jumpin’ Jenny, I pushed the button on my hand-held controller to activate full-interactive mode.
“Those jets are real, you know,” I said aloud, shivering from the high-altitude cold. I heard my words clearly in the un-pressurized air, which meant my HP-A5-2 was doing its job. “The ones the pilot warned you about, I mean.”
Edwards jumped against his seat’s restraining harness, startled. He half-turned and saw me standing beside the first-aid kit.
“You again,” he said. His face sagged. He turned away from me and stared out the Plexiglas.
“Ummm…yes, me again. Part of our experiment involves studying stress on men in combat. I hope I didn’t frighten you.”
Edwards didn’t reply.
Ever.
In that hot core of his being, what he would have called his soul, my sudden appearance shattered a fragile hold on reality that had gone undetected by me and the flight doctors. The constant stress of flying combat missions over Germany had taken its toll. Without my interference he would have gritted his teeth and made it through, but I pushed him over the brink and into the abyss of insanity. A transparent man six inches tall pried his mind loose of reality. Maybe he knew he had finally snapped and couldn’t live with the stigma that mid-twentieth century society attached to such men. I don’t know. I’ll never know, and I’ll bet even the so-called experts don’t either. I can only report what happened.
He hunched forward in his seat and continued to stare. The thousand-yard stare it has been called. I tried rousing him for a few minutes simply by talking. When that didn’t work I walked around the turret (quite a long way when you’re six inches tall). His eyes were locked on some distant object only he could see; he had the glassy, unblinking eyes of a man whose mind had shut down.
The experts in Time Psychology who testified at my trial called it Severe Phenomena-Induced Trauma. Apparently it was a well-known malady that first showed up in the early days of time travel. The public never heard of it because there was no reason they should. People like me weren’t allowed to do what I did, only government experts were, and they were trained to deal with all known time-related problems, including Severe Phenomena-Induced Trauma. During the trial they asked me why I thought licenses were regulated in the first place. What gave me the right to meddle in things I didn’t understand? Why did I, a lowly historian, think I knew more about the dangers of time travel than the experts? There was only one mitigating factor in my favor and it saved my existence, though not my life.
I’d never seen someone whose mind snapped before, but that didn’t keep me from knowing what had happened. His eyes took on a vacant quality that hadn’t been there before, like a bottle drained of its water. Immediately upon seeing Edwards’ madman stare I realized he was in some sort of shock. What I did next cheated the hangman.
First I tried shouting, hoping somehow to wake him. Of course that didn’t work, for though I was fully interactive, I was still only a hologram and my voice didn’t carry its full weight or volume. Then I clawed my way up his boot to a crease in his flight suit, which I followed to the knee, ran up his thigh and edged along a fold in his jacket as though it were a narrow trail on the side of a cliff, once clinging to the zipper to keep from falling. (Although a hologram, I did have enough physical presence in Edward’s time stream to touch or handle things.) Finally I made it to his shoulder where I shouted in his ear, slapped his jaw, pulled at some unshaven beard on his neck and, in desperation, tried biting him. Nothing worked. A six-inch hologram doesn’t have much strength to call on. But I did everything I could think of to correct my mistake. I tried, and in the end that was what mattered.
Winded from the exertion I rested a minute, my gaze straying to the fields of Germany far below. The sun glinted from something for a split-second, but I lost it. Was that an aircraft? I looked were it should have been if it was rising to meet the bombers, but saw nothing. I kept staring until my eyes watered. Then my peripheral vision caught another glint and my stomach tightened. It was a plane, all right, but moving much faster than any piston-driven fighter. Edwards was about to keep his date with history…the plane was an ME-262.
I panicked, wasting time trying to depress the Sergeant’s throat mike with my tiny, semi-solid hands. I tried firing the twin fifties, striking a match to start a fire, anything to get the attention of the other crew members, to let them know their tail gunner was a vegetable and their worst nightmare was closing fast from the rear. Nothing worked, and I realize now, in retrospect, that nothing would have.
I saw four jets now. They were five miles out and closing fast. I could see their cigar-shaped bodies and blunt, shark-like noses. I slid and tumbled off the sergeant and hit the turret-floor running. I hoped to alert the waist gunner before thirty millimeter shells tore Jumpin’ Jenny to shreds. Sweating and stumbling and cursing I only made it to the hatch when the world exploded around me.
Edwards died in the first stream of shells, his body ripped to shreds of bone and flesh that spattered me from head to toe. Shards of Plexiglas and steel filled the air with shrapnel. I crouched behind a hydraulic line as Jenny shuddered under the punishing barrage. And then I wasn’t in the turret any more. I was in a chair at the TRC with a grim man standing over me. His name was Gomorrah.
* * *
When Edwards died, history changed. Down-time the Time Police knew it at once. They scanned the appropriate frequencies, cross-checked the findings against abnormal power usages and fingered me as the culprit, all in about 4 seconds. It took seven more seconds to override command of my HP-A5-2 and less than one second to transport me back to my own time. The lead prosecutor was a hardass named Peter Dance. It took him no time at all to prepare the case against me.
What defense could I offer? Because of me a man died who should have lived. Children who should have led wonderful lives were never born, and their children were erased from history. Instead of a two-point victory, Memphis State lost by twenty-one to U
CLA in the 1973 NCAA finals. Without Edwards’ son there to help shut down Bill Walton, the big redhead hit 21 out of 22 shots and scored 44 points. The TRC prosecutors called it collateral homicide, a specific term for a specific form of murder.
The question then was what to do with me. Prison overcrowding was a huge problem. The best thing I had going for me was that I stayed and tried to right my wrong. The court was inclined to leniency but they couldn’t just let me go, so what was to be done with me? Overcrowded prisons certainly didn’t need another long-timer on the rolls.
Jurassic Jails were in their infancy then, and they considered it. Strand me in 100 million B.C. and let it go at that. It was a way to make sure I served my sentence without spending much money feeding and housing me, with disease or a giant lizard doing the hangman’s job in the end. Then someone brought up indentured servitude on a Roman galley, and somebody else a brick-maker in service of Pharaoh to build the Great Pyramids of Giza. In panic I pitched Mr. Dance on a wild idea that I sold with the passion of desperation. That’s why the final resolution of my case was my own idea.
* * *
My name is now Joe Edwards. No relation to Jumpin Jenny’s previous tail gunner; it’s just one of those weird coincidences you read about. That’s my cover story. My superstitious crewmates give me the fish eye, like I’m a ghost or something worse. That won’t change until we survive a mission and they can see I’m not a jinx. I don’t blame them, though, but I reassure them I’m not a ghost. I don’t tell them I’m something worse.
Staring through the Plexiglas of my tail-turret I can see the entire bomb-group spread out above the North Sea, the ice-crystals of their vapor trails pointing the way back to England. The sky is clear, and, as I see the P-51’s shining in the sun far above, I am comforted. The Little Friends are on station, ready to escort us to today’s target: Berlin. While the other members of Jumpin’ Jenny’s crew don’t seem worried about the anti-aircraft guns, the heavy flak over the capital of the Third Reich scares the hell out of me.
I carry the picture of a girl named Adele Stephenson in my wallet. When the war is over I am going to court her and hopefully marry her and have three children, assuming I survive. With any luck one will play basketball for Memphis State. I’ve started smoking Lucky Strikes and reading westerns. There’s a job waiting for me at a tire factory in Memphis, and it’s now my life’s ambition to make shift foreman. When I cry myself to sleep at night my new crew mates ask what’s wrong, and I tell them I’m weeping for the life I left behind, which is true.
There’s turbulence over Germany this day, and, as I’m bouncing against my harness, I remember one of the rituals I’d learned.
“Tail gunner to copilot. Permission to test guns?”
“Granted.”
Both work perfectly, the jolting recoil of the twin fifties shaking me to my teeth.
“Guns OK. I need to piss.”
The copilot is quiet for a moment. Finally, he says, “That’s what Edwards used to say.”
“Oh?” I reply.
“Yeah…”
“Weird, huh?”
The copilot paused again. “No pissing, except on the Germans.”
“Roger that.”
There’s no sign of the damage inflicted by the ME-262. Ground crews have replaced the turret and cleaned up the blood and bones. My window of Plexiglas is new and clean. It is time for me to face my fate, to fight for a country that is not mine, all while hoping to survive my sentence.
* * * * *
William Alan Webb Bio
As a West Tennessee native raised in the 60s and 70s, and born into a family with a long tradition of military service, it should be no surprise that the three chief influences on Bill's life have been military history, science fiction and fantasy and the natural world. In 1972 he won the Tennessee State High School Dual Chess Championship, and spent every waking moment playing board games, role-playing games, and naval miniatures. College featured dual concentrations in History and English. Everything after that is anti-climax, except for wife, kids, published books and all that kind of stuff.
Website: www.thelastbrigade.com
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/keepyouupallnightbooks
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Red Tailed Tigers by Justin Watson
Benny rocked as the C-47’s wheels hit the tarmac. Standing five foot eight and a heavily muscled one hundred and sixty pounds, Benny had caramel skin and refined, patrician features thanks to his Creole mother. Until three days ago, he’d also been an Air Force officer with a promising career ahead of him.
The cargo plane rolled for about five more minutes, Benny swaying miserably in his seat the whole way before the roar of the engines turned into a whine and then came to a full stop. Benny ran a hand across his brow and wiped the accumulated perspiration on the gooney bird’s canvas seat before lurching to his feet. Benjamin Jakes and Robin Olds were the only passengers; the rest of the hold was filled with crates of .50 caliber ammunition. Benny gave Olds a baleful look.
“What? It’s no worse than the Philippines,” Olds said, retrieving his duffel bag. “Aren’t you from Louisiana?”
“I feel like I’m drinking the air,” Benny said.
“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Olds said.
“Gentlemen,” the C-47 pilot said as he stepped out of the cockpit. “Welcome to Gia Lam Airport, jewel of Hanoi. The temperature is five degrees hotter than hell and it’s humid enough to drown a fucking fish. If you head down the gangway and take a left, the 4th AVG building is right there. No offense fellas, but shake a leg. I can’t get out of this hellhole until they come unload all this ammo.”
The pilot was a middle-aged man with thinning gray hair.
“Alright, buddy, we’re moving,” Olds said. “High risk of air raid here, I take it?”
“Nah,” the cargo pilot said, tapping out a cigarette and lighting it. “The war is all out on the frontier with Laos and Cambodia. Both sides are leaving the rear areas alone for the moment.”
“So why are you in such a hurry?” Benny said.
The pilot took a drag off his cigarette and chuckled.
“Because I fucking hate it here,” he said.
The sun was blinding after the dim cargo hold, and it cooked Benny’s head and shoulders unmercifully as they trekked across the tarmac. On their way to an over-sized Quonset hut, with a simple wooden sign that read, “4TH AVG,” Benny counted sixteen straight-winged, smooth nosed P-80 jets waiting on the flight line, and twice that number, each, of single propeller driven P-51 Mustangs, P-47 Thunderbolts and fork-tailed P-38 Lightnings.
“You had to deck that colonel,” Olds said.
Benny glared at Olds. His friend was a solid five inches taller than him and seemed wide as a barn door with a broad, square face that bore no hint of chagrin.
“He tried to deck me,” Benny said. “After you provoked him.”
Olds shrugged. “He shouldn’t have called you a nigger.”
“That’s my fight, Robin,” Benny said. “Do you want fly jets or go around punching every bigot in the Air Force? The latter is going to take you a lot of time.”
“They both sound fun, to be honest,” Olds said. “Look are you going to keep bitching at me or can we check in and start flying jets?”
“You brought it up.”
Benny and Olds continued their trek across the tarmac.
“They’ve got a nice little Air Force going here,” Olds said.
“Yeah,” Benny said, pulling the door to the hut open. “Wonder what all the French have got on the other side. Besides the 262s, of course.”
The clattering of typewriters and static-ridden radio chatter greeted them as they stepped inside. The layout was familiar, with maps and charts dominating large tables in the center of the space illuminated by intermittent bulbs hung from the peak of the arced ceiling.
“Okay, tell the bombers we’ll have escort up in five minutes,” a deep Texas drawl drew Benny’s eyes to a radio
set on the other side of a massive map of Vietnam. “They can sortie now, and we’ll get ahead of them.”
The speaker was a tall, lean man with a broad face and over-prominent ears. He looked up from the radio just in time to see Benny and Olds step through the door.
“Olds, Jakes,” he said. “They told me y’all were coming. Good, now we’ve got a four-ship.”
“Sir?” Benny said.
“This ain’t the Air Force, Jakes, I’m the boss, David Miller,” he said. “Call me Tex. And I’m glad you’re in flight suits because we’ve got a mission.”
“Sir, what?” Olds said. “We just got here—”
“And now that I have you, that makes four P-80 qualified pilots between you me and Jesus over there,” Miller pronounced the name Hey-soos, and pointed to a swarthy man bent over the map. Jesus looked up and gave them both a toothy grin.
Benny exchanged a look with Olds, who shrugged.
“What’s the mission, sir?” Olds said.
“I told y’all to call me Tex,” Miller said. “The Viet Minh have a company of Frenchies pinned on our side of the border. We’re sending a passel of Jugs to hammer ‘em real good. The P-51s will sweep ahead and level, we four are going to fly outlaw high, and surprise them sonsabitches if they show up in their German jets.
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