Bomber (25 page)

‘Have a rest, boys,’ said Walter to his captives. He was enjoying mocking them. ‘We’re all going to be busy when the relief guards arrive in the morning.’

They sat in the glow of a gas lamp, the captives down one end of the room, Walter and the guard at the other, guns raised. Harry’s heart was beating fast. This was the end of the road. Maybe he would spend the rest of the war in a Spanish concentration camp; he hoped Natalie had been right and they would not send him back to the Nazis in France. But he felt sick with anxiety for Miquel. It was difficult to tell in the low light, but his guide looked white with fear. The thought of Miquel being tortured and then executed filled Harry with horror. Anger boiled up inside him.

‘What’s your game, Walter?’ he shouted. ‘Are you some kind of nut?’

Walter gave a smug smirk. ‘You suckers,’ he laughed. ‘You let me follow you all the way down the escape line from Amiens. Those Resistance bastards won’t know what hit them when I get to talk to the Gestapo. Paris, Bordeaux …’ He turned to Miquel. ‘And you creeps in your piss-ant border town.’ He looked at the Spanish guard.
‘At least Pedro here has been doing his job properly. We thought the border guards might be open to bribes.’

Anger flashed in Walter’s eyes. ‘We’re on the wrong side,’ he said. ‘We should have listened to the German American Bund before we got involved with the Limeys. With our Jewish press, pumping out their hate for Hitler, America didn’t stand a chance. I knew I did the right thing when I came over here to fight with Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Then I went with the fascists to fight over in Russia as part of the Blue Division. Bolshevism has to be stopped before it takes over the world. And their pals, the lousy Jews. They’re just dupes for the Jews back home.’

‘So what the hell are you doing here?’ asked Harry.

‘They asked me to infiltrate the escape lines. Gave me an airman outfit, dog tags, the lot. You all bought that story about Chicago and the girl, didn’t you? I wouldn’t live in that mongrel nation again. Not now I know how a good fascist country can be run.’

Now he’d started, Walter didn’t feel like stopping. He’d played a role these last few days and now he could be himself. He turned on Harry.

‘You just came over from England, didn’t you? I hear the Limeys let the Blacks over there run free – dating those English girls. They have the right idea in Germany. Girls who consort with subhumans get sent to concentration camps.’

‘The Germans are gonna lose this war,’ said Harry with conviction. ‘And when they do, you’re gonna be shot as a traitor.’

Walter laughed cruelly, then came over to Harry and pulled his head back by yanking on his hair. ‘You look like a Yid. I knew you were a Jew boy the minute I saw you. Maybe I’ll shoot you. They’re not so intent on cleansing their Jews this side of the border. Don’t give me any excuses.’ Then he picked up a bayonet lying on the table and tapped his finger on the tip of the blade. ‘Or maybe I’ll just slit your throat …’

Miquel spoke up. ‘You will never win after Stalingrad. Soon the Americans will come, and the British and the Canadians. They will come over the sea. They will take back
la France
. And their bombers will reduce your Third Reich to dust.’

‘Hey, mountain man, I’d shoot you with pleasure. But I’m sure our Gestapo friends will enjoy hearing what you have to say. Maybe you’ll tell them about your pretty little French girl. She’s clever. It’s a shame she’s on the wrong side too. The Germans will make a real mess out of her when they catch up with our Natalie.’ His eyes hardened. ‘Stalingrad was just a temporary setback. This is a turning point in world history. National Socialism will disinfect the diseases of Bolshevism and Capitalism. Yes, the invasion will come from the west and it’ll be destroyed on the beaches. I’ve fought side by side with German soldiers. And they’re the best in the world.

‘Now excuse me, gentlemen, but much as I’m enjoying our little conversation, I need to piss.’ He turned to the guard and said, ‘
Tengo que mear
,’ then walked outside.

The guard looked at the two of them and, much to their surprise, winked. He got up, picked up his rifle and walked out too. A moment later a shot rang out.

The guard returned. They looked on, astonishment etched across their faces. He picked up the bayonet and for a moment Harry wondered if he was going to kill them too. But he didn’t. He knelt down behind each of them and cut them free.

‘I live in America for two years.’ He spoke in heavily accented English as he sawed at Harry’s bonds. ‘I like your “Mongrel” Nation.’ Then he said, ‘And my name is Luis, not Pedro.’

He spoke to Miquel in French. ‘
Vous êtes deux veinards
…’ Miquel chuckled as Luis continued to speak, then explained to Harry. ‘We are two lucky bastards. The guard who is usually here with him tonight is a hundred per cent Franco fascist and he loves the Nazis.’

They went outside to where Walter was lying face down on the ground, the back of his head a bloody pulp. It was a good thing that Walter had gone outside; it would have made a terrible mess in the guard hut. The guard gave his body a hefty kick. He was dead all right.

Harry and Miquel picked him up by the legs, and the guard held on to his arms. They stood beside of the river and swung him back and forth three times before hurling him into the water.

‘Thank you for helping us,’ Harry said as they walked back to the hut.

‘Two of my brothers, they joined the Blue Division,’ said the guard, ‘The one that jerk talk about. Both killed in the siege of Leningrad. My poor mother. Died of a broken heart.’ He crossed himself.

Harry was confused. ‘But Spain isn’t fighting in the war?’ he said.

‘Blue Division is volunteers – all Spanish soldiers, fighting Soviets.’ He sighed. ‘We back the wrong side of this war, my friends … Now, inside. I make coffee.’

Miquel and the guard spoke for a while in French. Miquel told Harry, ‘Luis here will look after you.’ The next guard shift was due to arrive at six o’clock and they mustn’t know anything, so Harry would have to hide in the woods. ‘I’ll stay
un moment
, then I go back through the mountains.’

They drank their sweet black coffee in a daze. Harry felt a huge debt of gratitude to Miquel. When he got up to go, he gave Harry a handshake and a hug that almost crushed the life out of him. ‘
Bonne chance!
’ he said. Then he vanished over the bridge.

The guard gave Harry a thick greatcoat hanging up behind the door. He told Harry to walk to the road, a kilometre or two to the east, where there was shelter by roadside. When his shift was finished, Luis would meet him there and take him on to Bilbao.

Luis had driven Harry to Bilbao and dropped him a street away from the British consulate. From here arrangements had been made to have him returned by boat to England. Four weeks later he found himself at the main entrance to Kirkstead Air Base, just as dusk was falling.

It seemed unreal. He had made it back for the week before Christmas. And, as the carol promised, the snow lay crisp and even over the base and the flat fields of Norfolk. Snow did wonderful things to any landscape, even the muddy and dreary Nissen huts of Kirkstead. Everything looked so beautiful in the late afternoon light.

He was eighteen now, his October birthday literally forgotten in the strange blurred weeks of his escape. In his heart he knew he was no longer the boy who had arrived here on that late summer’s day. Now he was back he felt like a hardened veteran.

As he walked towards the main ops room to report his arrival, he was surrounded by unfamiliar faces. What was it someone had said one night in the canteen? ‘You don’t
see dead bodies in this job, just empty beds.’ He had seen both now.

His thoughts quickly turned to the rest of his crew. John, especially, was never far from his thoughts. One of the first things he had promised to do when he got back was to write to his friend’s family, and his girl, Shirley. Then he thought of Corrales, and how much the lanky tail gunner had made him laugh, and the other guys he knew for sure were dead – Holberg, Dalinsky, Skaggs, Cain … He hadn’t liked them all, but they still felt like brothers. They had been through a lot together. He felt his throat close up and his chest grow heavy. Back in Kirkstead his dead companions surrounded him like gossamer spectres.

A hearty shout jolted him back to the real world. ‘Haaarrrrryyyy!!!!’ It was Ernie Benik, who let out a great whoop of triumph. ‘Hey, fellas,’ he cried, ‘Friedman’s back!’

The other ground crew ran over to greet him, and Harry found himself borne up on their shoulders. Complete strangers joined in and the crowd around him grew to a swirling multitude. This was what Frank Sinatra must feel like when he was mobbed by bobby-soxers. Even Colonel Kittering emerged from the control tower to see what the fuss was about.

As the colonel approached, the mob grew subdued and everyone stood to attention.

‘It’s Sergeant Friedman, sir,’ said Ernie Benik. ‘From the
Macey May
.’

‘Goddamn it! We thought you were dead!’ Kittering cried. ‘Come and have a whiskey.’

Kittering took him into his office and poured a drink from a crystal decanter. Harry didn’t like whiskey but he took a gulp and swallowed the fiery liquid anyway. Again, he was flushed with a feeling of relief. He had made it home.

‘So, tell me all about it, son,’ said Kittering.

Harry told the colonel about the Resistance and his escape across France, who had died in the
Macey May
and how Holberg had sacrificed his life, holding the bomber steady while the rest of the crew had tried to escape.

Harry thought he had lost him when he talked about the crew. He realised the colonel spent his life hearing about men under his command who had died, and he could barely remember one from the other.

‘Friedman, I’m going to recommend you for a Distinguished Flying Cross,’ said the colonel. Then he turned serious. ‘Sergeant, we sent your kit back home. We posted you as missing, presumed dead. Look, we gotta get a telegram out to your mom and dad as soon as possible.’

Heart in mouth, Harry asked a question that had been haunting him ever since he arrived back in England. ‘So, sir, do I get assigned to a new crew?’

The colonel shook his head. ‘No, you’re off active duty. We never let downed airmen back over Europe. If you got shot down again, there’d be too much the Gestapo could torture out of you about all the people who helped you.
We’ll send you back Stateside for compassionate leave, then you can stay there and train the new boys, or you can come back and train them here. You can make up your own mind, but I’d like you back here. It does the men good to see a flyer who came back.

‘And you’ll be in good company. I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Kittering stood up and called for his secretary. A young woman in Women’s Army Corps uniform appeared at the door. ‘Get this young man a coffee, Alice, and find him his mail. And have the major come straight over when his briefing is finished.’

Harry sat next to a warm stove and read through a handful of letters – two from his mom and dad, which stopped abruptly in the middle of October, when they would have heard he was missing. There was one from his cousin in New Jersey, and one without a stamp that had been hand-delivered. He guessed at once who had sent it, and he was right.

Tilly told him she had turned up at the dance and had been shocked to hear he had not returned from the raid – though they wouldn’t tell her where it was. She told him she had gone home that night and cried. Now she was writing, as an act of faith, as she was certain he would return, and when he did she wanted him to send a note so she would know he was back. ‘I’ve met quite a few of you boys from the base, but none of them have been like you.’

As he folded her letter, he thought he would ask for permission to go and see her as soon as possible.

There was a brief knock at the door and Harry looked up to see a familiar face. There in front of him was Bob Holberg.

The two hugged like long-lost brothers. ‘Harry! I was sure you were dead. I quit the plane just a second before she started to cartwheel.’

‘She broke up on the way down,’ said Harry. ‘Stearley got out too. Is he back yet?’

Holberg shook his head. ‘No word. I hope he’s OK. He’s probably found himself a cute little mademoiselle and is laying low for a while.’

‘What about the others?’ asked Harry, half dreading the reply he would receive.

‘Red Cross tell us LaFitte is in a camp in Saxony,’ said Holberg. ‘He’s pretty badly wounded, we’re told. They’re trying to get him repatriated. There’s no news of Bortz.’

That made Harry feel uneasy. Bortz had bailed out. Maybe they’d caught him and singled him out for special treatment because he was Jewish.

‘And you?’ asked Harry. ‘How did you get back?’

Holberg laughed. ‘Hooked up with the Resistance and they sent me back over the Channel. When you’ve unpacked your bags I’m taking you out for a drink and I’ll tell you all about it.

‘You know you’re off active service now?’ asked Holberg.

‘Yes.’

‘Come back here after your leave, Harry,’ said Holberg. ‘We need people like you and me around the base. Those
guys that are flying combat missions – they need reminding that they can survive the war.’

Harry thought of Tilly and her note. He smiled and nodded. ‘I’m coming back.’

Then he asked, ‘Captain, who do I ask for an evening pass out of the base?’

Holberg laughed. ‘I’m a major now – I can write you an evening pass.’

Harry hurried down the lane to the village, his breath silver in the moonlight. If he was lucky, Tilly would be there at her grandmother’s house. If she wasn’t, he would leave a note. Either way, he would be seeing her soon enough. He didn’t mind a wait. He’d got used to that over the weeks of his escape.

As he breathed in the crisp, clear air, and looked up at thousands of bright stars in the sky, it really hit him. He thought back to his early days in Kirkstead, back in the late summer, when he was convinced he would never see his eighteenth birthday, let alone Christmas. He had been wrong. Here he was, thinking, breathing,
existing
. He had lived where others had died and the future was still his.