On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  “What? Oh yes, of course. Please excuse me.”

  Dow watched as Alpharetta walked into the hall, stepped carefully over the sleeping Brewster, and then disappeared.

  At the appointed time, Alpharetta came downstairs again. Dressed in a tan skirt and blouse, low-heeled shoes, and a brown sweater draped across her shoulders, she looked as if she were going for a typical afternoon outing instead of heading toward a dangerous assignment, into a stronghold of war, spies, and enemy guns.

  Waiting for her at the door, Dow had reverted to his formal, distant manner. Birdie was the one to hug her and whisper, “Good luck, luv,” and then to watch as she climbed into the back of the Rolls-Royce.

  Reggie and Freddie had already left for the airstrip and so, as Eckerd pulled onto the road, the car contained only Alpharetta and her commanding officer, each silent, with memories to take the place of conversation that neither could manage at the moment.

  The schedule was closely coordinated, with arrival time at the airstrip precisely at 1500—twenty minutes after Alpharetta’s double was to have arrived from Stanmore in identical clothes so that anyone seeing the woman on her way back to Lochendall in the car with Dow would never suspect that Alpharetta was on her way with Reggie to the Orkney Islands.

  “It’s unbelievable, Pom, to find such look-alikes,” Mittie had confided to Dow that day at Air Defense. “Only the colors of their eyes are different. You see how well this works out. No one will know that the woman pilot is gone, for the other woman will have taken her place.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “The other woman, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “At a USO canteen. That is, after I saw her initially at the Ritz. That’s where I bumped into both of them. Lucky for us, what?”

  “I don’t know, Mittie. I have a feeling you’re getting me into quite a bit of trouble. I’m not even married, and you’re making a bigamist out of me, supplying me with two wives,” he said, chagrined.

  “But not at the same time, Pom. And neither one knows the other is involved.”

  As Dow and Alpharetta rode in silence, Dow remembered the previous conversation with Mittie. Now the scheme had gone too far to be called off. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the woman beside him and it was incomprehensible that anyone else in the world could even remotely resemble Alpharetta Beaumont.

  “You have your Beretta?”

  “Yes. It’s in my shoulder bag.”

  “Promise me—that you won’t hesitate to use it, if necessary.”

  She looked up into his face, her eyes suddenly luminous with unshed tears. She made no promise, merely shook her head.

  In anger, he reached out and grasped her arm. “That’s an order, do you understand.”

  “Dow, you’re hurting my arm.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said relaxing his hold. “But I’ve got to make you understand. You might be in physical danger—anytime, in any situation. And you’re a woman, entirely alone.”

  “I know.”

  Belline paced up and down the hangar. She was furious to be kept waiting, hidden away in the cavernous monstrosity, not allowed to show her face outside. She grimaced when she glanced down at the drab, unfashionable outfit she had worn—like a brown bird, camouflaged into the landscape. She had learned long ago that, to be noticed, a woman had to wear the colors that showed off her best features.

  The hangar door opened; a black Rolls-Royce drove inside. Belline immediately brightened.

  Not waiting for Eckerd to open the door, Dow leaped from the car and, with swift steps, went to meet Belline.

  She smiled at the handsome RAF officer, coming toward her. The assignment, whatever it was, suddenly promised to be more interesting than she had hoped for.

  Inside the car, Alpharetta sat alone. Seeing Belline smiling at Dow Pomeroy in the same manner she flirted with Ben Mark, and realizing that Belline was part of the plan about which no one had thought to tell her, Alpharetta felt betrayed. She stepped out of the car.

  Belline, talking with Dow, tensed when she saw Alpharetta.

  “What are you doing here, Alpharetta?” she gasped.

  “I’m just leaving. How are you, Belline?”

  “As well as could be expected, under the circumstances. It’s been so beastly in London, with all the bombs.”

  “You’d better not waste time, Alpharetta,” Dow interrupted. “You only have minutes to spare.”

  So there were to be no private good-byes with Dow as there had been with Dow and Lady Margaret Cranston. Alpharetta watched as Dow and Belline climbed into the Rolls-Royce. Then, not looking back, she walked onto the tarmac and boarded the reconnaissance plane, with Reggie in the pilot’s seat.

  Eckerd drove out of the hangar and, from the car, Dow watched the plane take off. He had deliberately avoided any last words with Alpharetta, for he had wanted to abort the flight. Yet he knew the mission had to go as planned. With a dismal feeling that he might never see Alpharetta again, Dow waited until the plane had completely disappeared. Then he gave Eckerd the order to return to Lochendall. And on the way, it was Eckerd who listened to the talkative Belline. Dow Pomeroy, with a great emptiness in his heart, had thoughts only for the woman who had left him.

  Birdie Summerlin, tidying up Alpharetta’s room to make way for Belline, changed the sheets on the bed. And although the room didn’t need it, Birdie dusted and polished the furniture. The only thing to do was to keep busy so she wouldn’t worry over Alpharetta. When she had finished dusting, she straightened the small desk top, removing the blotter to polish beneath it.

  It was under the blotter that she found the telegram addressed to Alpharetta. At first, she started to return it to its hiding place. But she had seen too many telegrams like it in the last four years not to be affected by it. She had continually prayed that, as a mother, she would not be the recipient of a message such as the one that she now held in her hands.

  By the time Dow returned to Lochendall with Belline, Birdie’s eyes were red from crying. Alarmed at her obvious distress, Dow asked, “What’s the matter, Birdie?”

  “I need to talk with you, Sir Dow, just as soon as I show the miss to her room.”

  “I’ll be in my office, Birdie.”

  The woman took Belline Wexford upstairs, to the same room used by Alpharetta. “If there’s anything you need, Miss Wexford, just let me know.”

  “Lady Pome4roy.”

  “What, luv?”

  “You’re to address me as Lady Pomeroy, I understand.”

  Her haughty voice caught Birdie off guard.

  “And I suggest if you’re having some personal crisis, that you forget about it while you’re working. I don’t care for unhappy people around me.”

  Birdie’s lips tightened. She forced herself to remain civil for her commanding officer’s sake.

  “If you will excuse me, Lady Pomeroy. Tea will be served at 4:30 in the parlor, if we don’t see you before then.”

  “Oh, I’ll more than likely be down after I’ve unpacked.”

  In his office, Dow looked out the window toward the sea while he waited for Birdie. What an unsatisfactory, disappointing day all around. And the next three days promised to be even worse, holding nothing but a vast uneasiness for everyone concerned with the project.

  As his secretary walked into the office and closed the door, he turned around. “All right, Birdie? What’s so disastrous?”

  “I thought you should see this, Sir Dow. I found it when I was tidying up Alpharetta’s room.”

  Birdie held out the telegram and waited for Dow to read it.

  We regret to inform you that Seaman 1st Class Conyer S. Beaumont and Petty Officer Duluth M. Beaumont, serving aboard the USS Tallahassee in the Pacific, have been listed as missing in action and presumed dead. The USS Tallahassee was torpedoed on June 10, 1944, with no survivors rescued.

  Incredulously, Dow looked at the telegram, reread it, and, as if it were burning in his
hands, released it, letting it fall onto his desk. He sat down in the chair and stared at the brown slip of paper with a sense of horror.

  “Alpharetta’s two brothers, Sir Dow,” Birdie said. “On the same ship.”

  “The telegram must have been in the mail packet Freddie brought last night. I gave it to her this morning, Birdie, directly after breakfast.”

  Dow recalled his rebuke as they went over the briefing later. “She didn’t say a word about it, Birdie. And all the time, when she was trying to absorb the last-minute instructions, the code, she was living with this.” He looked up at Birdie who was blowing her nose. “I should have known something was wrong, just from her reaction.” He got up and began to pace back and forth, pounding his fist into the palm of his hand in agitation.

  “Poor lamb. You think she’ll be all right?”

  “I pray to God she will be,” Dow replied.

  The sound of heels clicking on the landing indicated that Belline Wexford had left her room.

  “You’d better go and head off her ladyship before she spoils things,” a determined Birdie said, knowing no other way to protect Alpharetta from harm.

  “Please close the door after you. I’ll keep the telegram, Birdie, if you don’t mind.”

  Dow sat down again in his desk chair. Alpharetta’s loss became his own as he was caught up in the memory of those self-destructive days when he had first heard the news of Gerald. Grieving for his own brother, he had challenged death himself, taking suicidal chances in each fighter mission. He prayed that Alpharetta would not do the same.

  The telegram could not have come at a worse time. “Alpharetta.” He spoke her name aloud, with his entire being struggling in vain to reach her beyond the confines of the walls of Lochendall, to let her know he shared her distress, her sorrow.

  Dow suddenly had a great need to leave the house, to stand on the beach and to be absorbed in the primeval calm of sky and sea.

  With Brewster at his side, he left the walled compound behind. Disregarding the man watching the house, he climbed down the bluff where he stood, sheltered by the rock, and gazed out to sea.

  “Alpharetta,” he said again, but her name was lost upon the wind.

  Chapter 19

  Beyond the channel, in the Pas de Calais area, Ben Mark St. John, in his fighter bomber, made a sudden dive toward a strange contraption of concrete and metal jutting through the camouflage of tall trees. He had a few bombs left and he always made a habit of emptying his bomb bay before returning to base.

  Thinking that the strange object might be a candidate for his last bombs, he reconnoitered and, skirting the trees again, released the remainder of his load.

  A sudden explosion produced a ground shock. Quickly soaring aloft to avoid the great vacuum caused by the explosion, a satisfied Ben Mark noted the trail of fire and smoke from below and continued on his way.

  Ever since the weekend in London when he’d seen Alpharetta with Marsh, he had been short tempered and hard to live with. He never should have spent the weekend with Belline. It was a mistake from beginning to end. And worse, it effectively cut him off from Alpharetta, for he knew that, at the first opportunity, Belline would not hesitate to tell Alpharetta about it. Even though she had chosen Marsh over him, there was no guarantee that Marsh would come out of the Normandy invasion alive.

  In the distance, a small fishing vessel was reeling in its nets with the catch of the day. Ben Mark made a mock pass at the vessel, and feeling slightly bett4er now that he had given a scare to someone else, he headed for home.

  Marsh Wexford, unaware of his cousin’s thoughts, had neither the time nor the inclination to sit and contemplate his chances of survival. He was far too busy trying to defend the bridge.

  After one day of rest, the experienced troopers had been thrown back into battle, to supplement the green troops that had not fared so well.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a Tiger tank right now,” Giraldo whispered to Marsh as they lay in the muddy marsh beyond the bridgehead. “I’d push the bastards straight off the bridge.”

  Reloading his rifle, Marsh said, “Why don’t you steal one, Giraldo? You seem adept at getting anything else you want.”

  In a slightly miffed tone, Giraldo replied, “I noticed you drank the wine last night too, Lieutenant.”

  “It was only fit to gargle with, Giraldo, and you know that. Why couldn’t you have been a little more discriminating?”

  The men fell flat as the renewed strafing of their position rippled the reeds like a giant wind. The fighting was at an impasse, with American troops cut in two by the bridge. The disabled German tank, sitting in the middle of the bridge, effectively kept the American convoy of trucks and jeeps east of the river from crossing to join the others. And the troops, rather than advancing, had fallen back to defend their rear.

  “I know where there’re some tanks.” Gig piped up, once the strafing had passed. “In a grove about five miles away.”

  “That’s panzer division headquarters, idiot,” Giraldo replied.

  “But when night comes, they only have two guards on duty with the tanks,” Laroche said.

  “And where did you get that bit of intelligence, Laroche?” an unbelieving Giraldo inquired.

  “Maurice Duvalier, the man who rings the bells, told me so. It’s important to speak the language, Sergeant,” he added to needle Giraldo.

  An idea began to take shape in Marsh’s mind. If they were successful in stealing one tank, it could be used as a bulldozer to clear the bridge. The small American convoy could then follow behind the moving tank.

  “I’m going to see the major,” Marsh whispered and left his position near the bridge.

  Running a few feet, falling flat, then zigzagging, Marsh advanced a little at a time until, with a sudden sprint, he completed the run, rolled, and fell into the trench where the major had set up headquarters.

  “My God, Wexford,” the major said, recognizing the soldier who had landed at his feet. “Haven’t you taken enough chances for one day?” He put his pistol back into its holster.

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, what is it this time?”

  “Request permission, sir, to use one of the jeeps as soon as it gets dark.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To steal a Tiger tank, sir.”

  The major groaned. “And just how do you think you’d manage that?”

  “You know the panzer division headquarters?”

  The major nodded.

  “If you’re agreeable, Giraldo, Laroche, Madison, and I plan to drive within a quarter mile of their headquarters, hide the jeep, and go the rest of the way on foot. Laroche says there are only two sentries guarding the tanks at night. We’ll pick both sentries off, confiscate one of the tanks, and head back. Giraldo started out in a tank corps—”

  “Aren’t you oversimplifying, Lieutenant?”

  “They’re a few things we’ll have to play by ear.”

  “Such as being surrounded by Germans. What if you’re challenged by the guard?”

  “I speak German, sir. Fluently. Once we’re inside the tank, though, we’ll have the advantage. And we can clear the bridge for our own convoy to move.”

  The major stroked his three-day growth of beard. “Certainly the Germans won’t be expecting anyone so rash. You’ll have the element of surprise in your favor.” He struck his cigar back into his mouth. “Wexford, it sounds just harebrained enough to work.”

  “Then I have your permission?”

  “Heaven help you, yes. And just in case you’re lucky enough to get through, I’ll have a flag ready.”

  Marsh quickly zigzagged back to the bridge and his friends. He looked down at his combat boot, nicked by a bullet. He would have to be more careful.

  While the four men waited for darkness, the sun painted the flooded waters of the river gold and purple, while on the bridge lay bodies of soldiers—a surrealistic touch out of place with the pastoral setting.

  Th
e sun set and they moved out, one by one, to gather again in the spot where the jeep was camouflaged.

  Keeping to the road cleared of mines, Laroche drove the jeep, with Marsh beside him. Giraldo and Madison hung onto the back, their weapons ready as they headed in the direction of the German panzer division headquarters.

  After a long day of fighting, there was a silence over the countryside and the least noise, the slightest whisper, carried far beyond its source. Into this quietness the profane noise of the jeep penetrated. But the men were silent, for there was no need for conversation. Each knew exactly what he was to do.

  They had been lucky so far, the four of them—training together, fighting together, watching out for each other. They were so attuned to each other, they could move as one force.

  The task ahead would not be an easy one. Yet Marsh knew it was a job that had to be done, to settle the score in the land of his natural motherland, occupied for the second time in his lifespan by the Germans.

  In his breast pocket he carried the lucky piece sent him by his eight-year-old stepsister, Maya, with a note from Steppie, his adoptive mother. He reached up to assure himself that it was still there.

  Marsh had never told Steppie that while he visited the old vicomtesse in Paris, he had driven to St. Mihiel, the town where, as a two-year-old, he had been rescued from the battlefield. And yet he knew Steppie would have understood his desire to see for himself the village and to try to find someone who had known his mother, Ailly.

  He would never forget the afternoon spent with the white-haired old woman, Mme. Arnaud, with her gnarled hands clutching the cane that served as a reminder of the ravages of age.

  “Her name was Ailly, mon fils,” she began, repeating the name, as if to summon her memory. “I was her tutor in the château. Her name was stricken from the family Bible and never uttered again by her father, the count, even on the day he died. But what she did saved her entire family from being shot. I think, my son, that little Ailly is in Heaven with the angels, for she sacrificed herself for the good of her family.

  “I’m an old woman,” she confessed, digressing a moment from the story, “and in these latter years, I have changed my mind on a number of things. Ailly was a victim of war. Afterward, when the peace came, the transgressors, who were men, were forgiven. But the women, their victims, through no fault of their own, were ostracized, to live with the burden of guilt placed upon them by society for the rest of their lives. Or like Ailly, they were allowed to die in disgrace, erased from the book of memory.