On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  Chapter 31

  By noon of the next day, Sunday, September 17, the great air armada left England, the noise lasting for hours, a sound that cancelled speech and even the church bells’ tolling.

  Rushing out of the house on the downs, Alpharetta was joined by Dow. Together, they watched the sky carpeted overhead by planes, tip to tip, blotting out the sun’s rays and casting an almost solid shadow on the land. Now Alpharetta knew why Marsh Wexford’s pass had been cancelled.

  In broad open daylight, and on a Sunday, too, Captain Marsh Wexford had boarded the transport for the air portion of the Holland invasion, while other groups all over England waited their turn in the most massive movement of airborne troops ever undertaken.

  Seated next to Gig and Laroche, Marsh unconsciously reached toward his pocket to finger the good-luck piece as he had done each time before jumping toward the enemy But the commemorative coin was gone—given to little Ibert Duvalier as a pledge for his return to France.

  A strange sense of loss pervaded Marsh and then he chided himself for such superstition.

  Seeing Marsh’s action, Gig inquired, “What’s the matter, Captain? Forget something?”

  “No. Not really.” Marsh shrugged, reluctant to discuss it. He turned his attention to the continuous drone of the great armada that promised to fill the skies, not only for this day but for the next three.

  “It’s going to be different this time,” Marsh said aloud, to no one in particular.

  “Yeah. This time Laroche is going to watch out where he lands,” Gig teased.

  Laroche, ignoring the barb, said, “It’s going to be different, too, without Giraldo. Wonder where he is now?”

  “Probably trying to escape,” Marsh answered.

  The three of them became silent, forged in friendship despite the difference in rank, for survival was the greatest bond of all, tying them with the comradeship of fighting together in Sicily, Italy, and Normandy.

  Marsh looked around him, noticing the new faces—those who had been added to the combat team in place of the paratroopers left behind with each battle. And he knew that his cousin, Ben Mark, with only two days’ leave, would be playing a part in the Allied invasion later in the week.

  The 82nd Division, Gavin’s airborne troops, hardened from battle, scars on their bodies—medals of valor that could never be taken away—now braced for another jump in a roulette of time, for by all odds, few should have survived this long—especially Marsh, Gig and Laroche after the tank episode.

  Jumping with them this time was the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles of Matthew Ridgeway—two American divisions hammered far too thin, with one British division and a Polish brigade. They all shared the impossible tasks ahead—to secure the towns and the bridges for Montgomery’s troops and tanks to get to Arnhem, a front far too long, too narrow, a corridor one tank wide, with treacherous canals, ditches, and the unceasing flow of the Waal River, the greatest barrier of all. Nijmegen was the key. Without the capture of the Nijmegen bridge, the entire operation would be a failure. And it was up to the 82nd Airborne to capture it.

  The contour of the land became visible. Low hanging clouds parted into expanses of blue. The sun highlighted the terrain, the rays sweeping over the waterways, picking up the reflection of trees and villages, windmills, and even the deer that roamed freely in and out of the forests. The long shadow of the afternoon now extended over quiet Dutch farmhouses, gardens, and woods as the silk canopy filled the skies.

  Scattered for miles by the pilots in their drops from Sicily to Normandy, the commanders of the combat teams of the 82nd Airborne had learned their lessons well—to take their losses at the beginning in a concentrated drop, rather than risk losing half their troopers in an ineffective sprinkling all over the countryside.

  “. . . Put us down in Holland or put us down in Hell,” Colonel Mendez charged the pilots, “but put us all down together in one place.”

  Near the town of Groesbeck on the eastern side of the wooded heights, the pathfinders Marsh, Gig, and Laroche descended. The bright sunlight presented an added danger. But seeing the landscape clearly, they maneuvered their parachutes like sails to avoid the areas of water that had been so disastrous in their landings in Normandy.

  Marsh Wexford, landing in a farmyard on the other side of the woods from the De Groot Hotel, quickly unharnessed himself from his parachute and ran for cover, just as an unsuspecting Heinrich von Freiker picked up his napkin and began his lunch in the hotel dining room.

  Coming down within a few hundred yards from where Marsh had landed, Laroche divested himself of his parachute and ran in the same direction.

  Gig, holding a basket carrying a small brown puppy of undetermined pedigree named Lester, let go of the basket at the last possible moment, as he hit the soft, marshy polder land between the dikes. Rescuing the puppy, he zipped the mascot in the top of his combat suit and joined the rest of the team.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Marsh said, looking back at the sky for the planes that were to follow.

  In a matter of minutes, he and his men marked the area with small stoves and brightly colored strips to signal the special zone for the artillery units, gliders, and General Browning’s Corps headquarters directly behind them.

  “Help me, Laroche,” Gig whispered to his friend, as he retrieved the large cargo parachute containing a machine gun.

  Hidden in a ditch, Marsh and his team set up their defense weapons against the enemy and waited for the paratroopers and the Waco gliders to land. Large, lumbersome birds of wood, the military gliders plummeted from the skies, some landing intact, others splitting open at the moment of impact to reveal weapons and jeeps, the majority of which rolled out, unscathed.

  In the midst of the first wave of troopers, a Dutch intelligence officer, familiar with the land and the language, came down. He helped to guide them down a dirt road—half the men on one side, half on the other, reverting to the irrigation ditches at the sound of armored vehicles in the vicinity.

  Finishing his meal at the De Groot Hotel, Heinrich frowned in displeasure at being disturbed.

  “What is it, Horst?” Heinrich inquired.

  “We are being attacked, my Colonel, by paratroopers.”

  Cautious at the news, Heinrich laid down his napkin and, listening, heard the unmistakable drone of planes. With an epithet, he arose from his chair and walked to the large window giving a view of the low ground beyond the higher elevation of the hotel. As far as he could see, planes, gliders, and paratroopers filled the sky.

  “Why do they always have to come at mealtimes?” he fumed, feeling his digestion react uneasily to the sight. Without waiting for an answer, he ordered, “Get the car, Horst. We’ll try to reach Student’s headquarters at Vught. He’ll need me.”

  “It’s already outside the door, my Colonel.” He held out his commander’s pistol belt.

  The server, Anje, watching Heinrich secure the belt around his waist, felt a sense of elation, which she hid carefully in a bland expression as she approached the table.

  “Are you not having dessert, Herr Colonel?” she inquired.

  He glanced longingly at the pastries, shook his head, and left the nearly empty dining room while Anje cleared the table and hurriedly carried her tray of dishes back to the kitchen.

  The few remaining civilians in the dining room stood by the large window and watched the troopers descend from the sky in every direction.

  As she walked into the kitchen, Anje said, “Quick, Huls, the gravy is boiling over.” Her voice contained an urgency that was not lost on the chef. He wiped his hands on the large white apron surrounding his pot-bellied form.

  “Watch it for me, Anje,” he said, leaving the kitchen for the chef’s pantry, forbidden territory to any other worker.

  Inside the pantry, hidden under a wooden barrel, a telephone rested—a direct line to the Dutch Resistance headquarters five miles away.

  “The flour that I ordered has come,” he said to
the voice at the other end of the line. “I can now begin baking the birthday cake.”

  “Very good. When did the flour arrive?”

  “A few minutes ago. It will be a large birthday cake.”

  “Then I shall tell Clodjie. She will be pleased.”

  He quickly hung up the telephone and started toward the door.

  “Where is Huls?” the maitre d’ demanded as he walked into the kitchen.

  Anje gazed at Gerd, the Dutch Nazi collaborator standing before her. In a voice loud enough for Huls to overhear, she replied, “He’s gone to the pantry for more supplies.”

  Alerted, Huls picked up the chocolate he had been hoarding and a tin of special flour. As he almost bumped into Gerd, Huls smiled and, in a confidential voice announced, “I have decided to make special cakes for tonight’s dessert, with chocolate. Anje says the guests are extremely nervous.”

  “A good idea, Huls, even if we have nothing to worry about. Anje, you can stay this afternoon to help him.”

  “But I—”

  “Anje will only get in the way, Gerd. I want my kitchen to myself.”

  “As you wish, Huls,” the man replied, giving in to him, for Gerd knew that he could not do without Huls, despite his prima-donna temperament.

  Trying to appear unhurried, an excited Anje left the hotel grounds for the small house that she shared with her aged grandfather.

  As communication wires were cut by the Dutch Resistance, the German general Model, thinking the main attack was to be on Army Group B’s headquarters, hastily evacuated the Tafelberg and the Hartenstein, taking with him his military maps and little else. He had no way of knowing the real targets—the five bridges and surrounding waterways designating the northern route to Germany. The only thing he knew for certain was the invader’s descent from the skies.

  Marsh, with his first objective completed, requisitioned one of the jeeps from a freight glider. Soon his team was on its way from the drop zone.

  The jeep, containing Gig and Laroche, also held two new members of the pathfinders team—Megan and Howard.

  When the enemy fire became too intense, they would abandon the jeep for a ditch. Then they would resume their advance. In a narrow street where enemy fire suddenly strafed the path in front of them, the five jumped and rolled into the protection of a doorway not a moment too soon. Within seconds, the jeep was afire, with the explosion of the gas tank drowning out the other street noises.

  “Jeez, that was close.”

  “Too close,” Marsh replied, his hand unconsciously reaching for the good-luck piece that he no longer carried.

  Chapter 32

  “Gott im Himmel! Look, Horst,” Heinrich said, spreading the papers from the captured briefcase onto the nose of the crashed Waco glider.

  Horst looked uneasily, but not at the Allied military papers, for he was acutely aware of the scene of death—the crashed glider, dead paratroopers, his own dead countrymen, the area fought over only an hour or so earlier and now deserted, a cyclorama of battle, posed for a wide-angle photograph, with the slight breeze murmuring through the band of trees bordering the marshy field, like a brief, lonely whisper.

  Horst held the pistol in his hands and waited warily for his commander to walk back to the car, for despite the quietness, snipers could be lurking in the nearby woods.

  While Horst remained concerned for his commander’s safety, Heinrich examined the papers from the briefcase. He couldn’t believe his luck. Battle plans, with maps, the names of the units involved—their goal of five bridges—a detailed invasion plan of Holland. And he was the sole German possessor.

  Handing over such valuable information to Army Group B’s headquarters would be quite a coup for him. He could see the recommendations, the promotion long overdue—if the plans were genuine and not something planted by the Allies, as they were in the habit of doing to throw the Wehrmacht off track.

  He shifted the papers, recognizing the same units he had fought against in Sicily, Normandy and Italy. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the 82nd Airborne unit—the one that had given him such a black eye in Normandy, the one that had driven him from his comfortable villa in Sicily in the middle of the night. Paulina di Resa, in the green silk caftan, her long flowing black hair against the pillow, became a fleeting image in his mind, and a slight regret permeated his consciousness. He had not meant to shoot her, only scare her into confessing where she had hidden the priceless icon. If it had not been for the paratroopers—Yes, it was all their fault. They were to blame for his losing such a treasure.

  The face of the blond paratrooper had haunted him ever since that one encounter in Sicily. For a brief moment he had thought he was going mad, seeing his own father before him.

  Carefully, he read that portion of the plan that involved the American airborne unit. If Heinrich were lucky, the American was still alive and heading for the ultimate goal—the bridge at Nijmegen.

  He smiled. He would have ample time to turn the battle plans over to General Student and get to Nijmegen, to wait for the unit and hopefully for the blond American paratrooper who so resembled his father. And this time he would destroy them all.

  “Horst, start the car.”

  “Yes, my Colonel,” Horst replied, glad to leave the scene.

  Like Marsh in the jeep, Henrich in the German car detoured to avoid heavy artillery fire. For that reason, it took him much longer than usual to reach Student’s headquarters at Vught. The guards at the gate demanded to see Heinrich’s identification before he was allowed to enter the compound.

  As Horst slowed the car in front of the steps, Heinrich leaped from the car with the briefcase, returned the guard’s salute, and walked into the cool, black and white tiled hallway.

  In an imperious voice, Henreich informed the general’s aide, “I must see the general immediately. I have captured the entire battle plans for the Allied invasion.”

  “He’s on the telephone. Please have a seat, Herr Colonel.”

  “This is of the utmost importance,” Heinrich informed him. “Tell him that Colonel von Freiker is here,” he demanded.

  Hearing the name—General von Freiker was a special friend of General Student—the aide rose from his desk, tapped on the closed door of Student’s private office, and opened the door slightly.

  Through the narrow slit, Heinrich saw the general’s back as he sat on top of his desk, his black boot impatiently tapping the fine old mahogany as he talked into the mouthpiece of the black telephone.

  “Well, then, try the field telephone again, if you can’t reach him by this one.”

  With his hand over the speaker, Student turned toward the door. “Yes?”

  “Colonel von Freiker is here to see you—on urgent business.”

  “Show him in.”

  Again, Student turned his back and resumed speaking into the telephone as Heinrich entered the room, stood, and waited for the general to finish. Gazing about the room, Heinrich saw that it was no different from any other headquarters, with the wooden paneling, the picture of Hitler staring from the wall, and the large Nazi flag with black swastika that overpowered the room. He took the briefcase and unobtrusively laid the papers out on top of the massive desk, its corners marked by gold cutcheons, the grain of wood polished to a mirrorlike sheen.

  “Well, keep trying every few minutes,” Student spoke again, “and let me know as soon as you reach him.”

  With a sigh, Student hung up the telephone and turned to greet his visitor with a somber face. “Heinrich, my boy. What disastrous news do you bring with you?” he inquired.

  “Not disastrous, my General—I think I have found the entire invasion plans of Field Marshal Montgomery.”

  A cautious Student looked at the papers and asked, “Where did you get them?”

  “In a crashed glider, not far from your headquarters.”

  As Student sank into his chair and began to examine more closely the papers on the desk before him, Heinrich watched for the general’s reaction.
Waving a hand in Heinrich’s direction, an absorbed Student said, “Sit down, Heinrich,” as if he were still the small child Student had once dandled on his knee.”

  “It could be a hoax . . .”

  The disappointing words were immediately tempered with, “But I don’t think so, Heinrich. I believe these are genuine. And if they are, it is a retribution from the gods.”

  Inwardly glowing, Heinrich said nothing as Student continued examining each map. “So this is why I haven’t been able to reach Model. British paratroopers have landed right in his midst. But Bittrich should make short shrift of them with his tanks, if we can keep Horrock’s army from reaching them. I’ll have to call von Rundstedt and see if he can get in touch with either Model or Bittrich.”

  Under Student’s orders, Heinrich hurried to meet up with a panzer division alerted from the Reichswald, just over the German border near Wyler. The rendezvous point was to be a small castle on the Holland side used by Abwehr to monitor the Dutch Resistance forces.

  Colonel von Freiker was not the only one headed for the Raalte castle. Anje, still dressed in her serving uniform of black and white, had not gone home from the De Groot Hotel. She had met the groundskeeper at the end of the drive and his news had changed her mind.

  Never before had the Dutch Resistance been able to infiltrate the castle, but if luck were with her, she would find the files unattended.

  Somewhere within the military complex was the list of collaborators. But even more vital was a list of the Resistance fighters, complete with code names. They had been betrayed by a double agent, and one by one they had been arrested and shot.

  Now, if the groundskeeper’s information were true, Anje had the opportunity to destroy the evidence against them and to find out the name of the double agent so that the Resistance might deal with him. People like Gerd, the maître d’ at the hotel, while annoying, had stated their allegiance to the Nazis and the members of the Resistance had carefully avoided letting men like him learn what was going on in the underground. She and Huls were always careful around Gerd.