Bomber

by Paul Dowswell

  The rest of the crew looked blank. In their blind panic to escape, they had forgotten almost everything they had been trained to salvage.

  Harry expected an excoriating dressing-down from the captain, but Holberg didn’t have the energy or the heart.

  ‘OK,’ he said plainly. ‘We’re freezing to death, we don’t know where we are, and there’s nothing we can do to call for help. Any suggestions?’

  Harry glanced at Corrales, praying there was no smartass quip on his lips. The tail gunner held up a paddle. ‘At least we got one of these, Captain.’

  Harry had barely noticed the cold, apart from the initial paralysing shock when he entered the sea. But now he realised he was desperately, dangerously cold – colder than he could ever have imagined.

  ‘We gotta huddle together, try to keep warm,’ said Dalinsky.

  ‘You’ve been reading your survival guide,’ said Holberg. ‘Well done, Sergeant.’

  LaFitte surprised them all. ‘I got a thermos with me. Let’s hope it hasn’t cracked.’

  ‘LaFitte, you’re a hero,’ said Holberg wearily. ‘Stearley first, then let’s all take a sip.’

  They all took a mouthful of hot milky coffee, except Cain, who waved the thermos away.

  Holberg insisted. ‘Cain, you just saved Stearley’s life.’

  The men usually joked that the coffee in the canteen was ‘battery acid’, but at that moment Harry thought it was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted in his life. Even a small amount helped clear away the salty taste of the sea from his throat, and warmed him slightly. But seconds later they were all shivering uncontrollably, teeth chattering so much it was difficult to talk.

  ‘We gotta paddle,’ said Hill. ‘Keep warm.’

  ‘I know,’ said Holberg. ‘But we’ve got to paddle in the right direction. ‘We don’t want to be halfway back to Holland by the time the sun comes up.’

  Harry knew they could be half dead of exposure by then.

  ‘OK, we’ve got to keep the blood flowing,’ said Holberg. He got them to all rub each other’s arms and backs. It took their minds off how cold they actually were.

  ‘Now let’s frighten the fish with a sing-song,’ he said. ‘What do we all know?’

  They sang a mad version of Glen Miller’s ‘In the Mood’, each of them pretending to play the saxophones, trumpets and trombones of that ever-popular instrumental number.

  Harry started to laugh. It was bizarre. Here they were, freezing to death but singing at the top of their voices. He looked at Bob Holberg with an overwhelming affection. What a great guy!

  The moon came out from behind a cloud, and they could take a fix on where they were.

  ‘The coast – look!’ shouted Bortz. Harry couldn’t believe his eyes. There were grey cliffs not half a mile away. They cheered themselves hoarse and all at once they began to frantically paddle towards land.

  From that moment on, their luck changed. Cain spotted a branch floating in the sea and they grabbed that too as another makeshift oar. Within half an hour they felt the rafts hit gravelly seashore and they leaped out and found themselves on a deserted muddy beach.

  Stearley had recovered enough to walk, and the bedraggled crew began to make their way inland.

  As they reached the edge of the beach a shot flew over their heads. All ten of them threw themselves to the ground in an instant.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ shouted Holberg. For one horrible moment Harry wondered if they had landed in occupied Europe after all.

  ‘Sorry, lads,’ came a sheepish voice. ‘Thought we were being invaded.’

  It was a squad of middle-aged and elderly men – a Home Guard detachment out on a night patrol. The Guard wasted no time looking after them. Within ten minutes they had been given hot drinks and dry clothes. By the time a truck had taken them back to Kirkstead it was still dark. The station had been alerted that they had been rescued, but when they arrived home no one greeted them except a few sleepy military policemen. They headed straight to their huts and collapsed in an exhausted stupor. Tomorrow they would have to face Colonel Kittering, who would, most definitely, be wanting an explanation.

  CHAPTER 7

  September 13th, 1943

  In what remained of the night, Harry was tormented by a recurring dream. He was trapped in his ball turret. It felt like a goldfish bowl and it was filling up with sea water. Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and those other top Nazis he’d seen in the newsreels were outside laughing at him. He woke up in the morning spluttering and gasping for air, his body covered in cold sweat.

  But at least he was still alive. Coming to his senses in the familiar confines of the hut, he realised the crew of the Macey May had had an extraordinarily lucky escape.

  Holberg arrived at the hut at 10 a.m., anxious to get something off his chest, and John Hill and Harry woke the guys who were still asleep.

  ‘You’ll have plenty of time to rest over the next few days,’ he explained as they sat in a weary semicircle around him. ‘I think we’ll all be sent on survival leave. But first there’s going to be an investigation.’

  ‘Will Cain be court-martialled, sir?’ asked John.

  ‘That’s very much down to us,’ said Holberg. ‘The evidence is at the bottom of the North Sea, so they’ll be going on what we tell them. I spoke to Cain before we went to sleep and he said he couldn’t understand why he was so off beam with his coordinates. He did say he felt unusually light-headed and I think he may have been having problems with his oxygen. And that storm didn’t help. That lightning strike definitely messed up the navigation instruments.’

  He paused, looking awkward.

  ‘I’ll be straight with you. I know some of the other officers on Macey May want him thrown to the dogs. They think he should have known something was wrong and sorted it out.

  ‘But I think we need to give him a second chance,’ Holberg continued. ‘He’s as good a navigator as we’re ever gonna get. He did a damn fine job on those training flights we did back home and he got us across the Atlantic …

  ‘You guys screwed it up as well. We left the Fortress without our radio and other essential equipment. Apart from Dalinsky, who remembered to release the life rafts, we did virtually nothing right when we ditched.’

  ‘Don’t forget the paddle, chief,’ Corrales said.

  ‘That’s unlikely to earn you a medal, Sergeant,’ replied Holberg.

  He paused again and looked round the group. ‘I’m gonna leave you guys to talk things over. I hope you’ll feel you can back Cain up, just like you’d want your buddies in the crew to back you up.’ Then he left the hut.

  The non-coms were divided over Cain.

  ‘He could have killed us all,’ said Dalinsky.

  Corrales nodded. ‘I don’t wanna fly a long mission with someone who’s gonna screw up. We got enough to worry about with the flak and the fighters.’

  ‘It wasn’t all down to Cain – you can’t blame him for that storm blowing up,’ Skaggs said.

  ‘Cain knows his stuff,’ Harry said. ‘He was acting kinda strange. We shoulda realised he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I think we should give him another chance.’

  Corrales and Dalinsky still looked uncertain.

  John spoke next. ‘I like Cain. He doesn’t hold himself above the rest of us like some of the officers. I’m for giving him another chance.’

  Harry chipped in again. ‘We’re a good team. We’ve been training together for five months now. I don’t want to go into combat with a stranger. It wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘Yeah, there is that. We could get someone even worse,’ said Corrales.

  ‘How about it, fellas? Are we gonna back Cain up?’ Harry asked.

  John Hill and Clifford Skaggs nodded, then Corrales.

  ‘I guess so,’ said Dalinsky finally.

  Harry’s face lit up. ‘I’ll go tell the captain.’

  Soon after midday Harry and his hut mates were disturbed again. This time it was Bortz. ‘Shi
ft yourselves, boys,’ he called through the door. ‘We’ve all got to report to the MO.’

  They sat together in the base hospital, in a stark waiting area, all feeling deflated, almost despondent. On their way there they passed the intensive-care section. They’d all glimpsed the guy in there, wrapped head to toe in bandages and plaster. John whispered he must be a burns victim or something. Or maybe he had burns and a lot of broken bones. ‘Even if he survives he’s going to be a real mess,’ he said. It was a fate none of them wanted to think about – utterly helpless, surrounded by doctors and nurses talking in concerned, hushed voices.

  The co-pilot was missing. ‘Is Lieutenant Stearley all right?’ Harry asked.

  ‘He’s on a ward. Twenty-four-hour observation,’ said Holberg. ‘That was a nasty bump he got when we landed. Concussion. I’m sure he’s going to be OK though.’

  The station medical officer, a gruff civilian doctor who had come out of retirement to serve with the air force, checked each of the crew over – the usual battery of tests for reflexes, heart rate, pulse …

  Harry’s turn came to enter the examination cubicle.

  ‘Any aches, pains you’ve noticed? Anything unusual?’

  ‘I slept pretty bad, sir, last night,’ said Harry, and he mentioned his dream.

  The doctor took out a brown glass jar and shook out a little black pill. ‘That’ll sort you out, son,’ he said. ‘Take it just before you turn in for the night. You’re lucky not to be suffering from exposure after a midnight ditching in the North Sea.’

  In a few minutes, the doctor had declared him fit for active service and Harry rejoined the others back in the waiting room.

  ‘Ditching should be worth at least twenty-four hours on the observation ward,’ Corrales grumbled.

  ‘There’s a war on, Sergeant,’ Bortz said wearily.

  Harry was surprised to find himself agreeing with Bortz. Putting them on the ward would have been unnecessary mollycoddling. He was proud of the way his crew had got through their ordeal. They were tougher than he had realised.

  But he hoped this didn’t mean he would lose that survival leave Holberg had mentioned. John Hill had asked if he would like to go to Edinburgh with him and he didn’t want to miss out on that.

  As they waited for the all-clear from the MO they hunched together to speak in low voices.

  ‘I’ve got to see Kittering this afternoon,’ said Holberg. ‘I know what he’s going to say to me.’

  Corrales mimicked the colonel’s gritty voice. ‘Uncle Sam pays quarter of a million dollars each for a B-17 …’

  Holberg silenced him with a stern look.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you all together, and this seems like the best opportunity. If they grill us all in debriefing, we’ve got to have the same story. Cain, you flew us over the Atlantic, you flew us all that way from Nebraska, for Chrissakes; you’ve always been spot on. Tell us all again what happened last night.’

  ‘I still don’t really know how I got it so wrong.’ Cain looked desperate. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t feeling myself on that flight. I was fine to begin with, but a few hours in I started to feel light-headed. I don’t know if it was the cold, but I just felt really detached from everything …’

  LaFitte spoke up, barely able to contain his hostility. ‘Lieutenant, didn’t you recognise anoxia symptoms from your training?’

  ‘I guess I should have realised, but I was having a hell of a job trying to keep our bearings in that storm and I suppose I just didn’t think about it.’

  ‘Sounds like a faulty oxygen mask to me.’ Holberg put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. ‘Lieutenant, in other circumstances I’d be recommending you for a Congressional Medal of Honor. Lieutenant Stearley and I would both have gone down with the Macey May if you and Friedman hadn’t come to rescue us.’

  He turned his gaze to the rest of the crew.

  ‘Well, we all screwed up in our separate ways. Even Stearley and I. We were so caught up in landing the Fortress level we didn’t even tell you when we were about to make contact.’

  ‘Hey, chief,’ said Skaggs. ‘You saved our lives. I heard B-17s can disintegrate if you don’t get that landing right.’

  ‘Well, I’ll level with you. I don’t want any of this to get back to Kittering. If the colonel finds out how bad we messed up, we’ll all be on the next transport back to the States. So are you with me?’

  They all nodded, even LaFitte, although he was looking pretty sour about it. Harry suspected some of them might relish the opportunity to get out of this, but no one said anything.

  At that moment, the MO came into the waiting area. ‘You can all go back to your huts and rest for the day. You’ve had a lucky escape.’

  Holberg called them together again, outside the hospital entrance, and spoke quietly. ‘OK. Good. I’ll have a word with Lieutenant Stearley when I go and visit him. As far as I’m concerned, we blame this on exceptionally rough weather and faulty equipment. That, and the lightning strike. Assuming they buy it, and assuming they keep us here, I want you all to read up on oxygen failure and how that makes you feel. And as soon as we’re back on duty we’ll be running those ditching drills until we can do them blindfolded.’

  CHAPTER 8

  Kittering was due to see Holberg at three that afternoon. He wasn’t looking forward to the encounter. He liked Holberg. He had a fresh-faced openness, almost an innocence, and the idea of sending a man like that to face almost certain death gnawed at the colonel in the dead of the night. He’d been a junior pilot himself, back in the first war, flying with the American Air Service over Flanders.

  That had been a fiasco right from the start. For every pilot killed in combat, two were killed in training. And the ones who lived long enough to fly in an operational squadron rarely lasted more than a month. The only thing that held them together, that kept them flying, was that they were more frightened of their commanding officer than they were of death itself.

  Kittering modelled himself on that man – Colonel Carl Bufford. The airmen had hated him at the time, and everyone on the base called him ‘Iron Ass’. But afterwards, when it was over, and Kittering was the only one of his intake to survive, he began to think Bufford was just the kind of man you needed to lead a bomb group in wartime.

  The planes were safer now, but combat was just as dangerous. In the First War Bufford had flown with his men, shared their danger, and that was something that had really impressed Kittering. He would have liked to do the same now, but the Eighth Air Force commander-in-chief, General Eaker, had expressly forbidden him to do so. Some bull about being too valuable to lose. He should have felt flattered, but he thought it made him look like a coward to the men.

  Kittering decided he was going to have to give Holberg a roasting. He might like him, but he seriously doubted he had the mettle to command a B-17.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come the hell in,’ he bellowed.

  Holberg put his head round the door. He looked unsure of himself, almost sheepish.

  ‘I hear things are a bit slack on the Macey May, Captain,’ said Kittering. ‘How else can I account for the loss of a quarter-million-dollar airplane on a training exercise?’

  ‘My crew did their best in difficult circumstances, sir,’ said Holberg. ‘We lost out way in a storm on our return from Edinburgh. Our Fortress was also hit by lightning, which affected our navigational instruments. And I have very strong reasons for suspecting Lieutenant Cain had a faulty oxygen supply.’

  The colonel listened in stony silence.

  Holberg felt compelled to continue. ‘Cain has performed extremely well until now. In training he brought us over the States, and then over the Atlantic to Kirkstead, with no trouble at all, and his ETA has always been right to the minute.’

  Kittering cut in. ‘Any damn fool navigator can estimate an aircraft time of arrival when all you have to worry about is getting a sunburn and what sort of chow you’ll have to eat when you arrive there. You need
a man who isn’t going to crack under pressure. I’m going to take Cain off combat duty. If he wants to continue to fly, he’s going to have to retrain as a gunner.’

  ‘Colonel, I’m convinced there’s some explanation for what happened. Cain showed exceptional courage after we had ditched, returning to the aircraft with Sergeant Friedman to rescue Lieutenant Stearley.’

  Kittering liked the way Holberg was sticking up for his navigator. The man had nearly killed them all, yet his captain was trying to keep him. But Kittering’s mind was made up. Bomber crews needed loyalty. That was how they got through the hell of combat operations. But a weak link would get them all killed.

  ‘Cut the bullshit, Captain. Cain messed up. And even if it was his oxygen, he should have recognised the symptoms of anoxia. He’s off this base by the end of the day. There’s a Liberator flying back to New York this evening. I want him on that plane.’

  Holberg opened his mouth to complain. Kittering butted in. ‘Stow it. And I want to see your crew saluting you and addressing you as an officer. You’ll thank me for it when you go into combat.’

  Kittering was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,’ said an orderly. ‘Urgent message from High Wycombe.’

  Holberg got up to go.

  ‘Sit down,’ Kittering snarled. ‘We aren’t done yet.’

  The colonel scanned the message he’d been given from bomb group headquarters. It called for an immediate change of plan.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘I changed my mind. I need twelve Fortresses combat-ready for imminent operations. Cain’s on probation. You’re all on the combat roster as of now.’

  ‘But, sir, we were told we were due survival leave,’ blurted Holberg.

  ‘Cancelled,’ said the colonel. ‘Dismissed!’

  Harry was reading a month-old copy of Time magazine when Holberg came over to the hut later that afternoon. They all looked up from their beds and chairs. Harry could tell Holberg was milking the moment, trying to look inscrutable. But he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. ‘We’re off the hook!’ he announced with a grin.