By the Blood of Heroes (16 page)

“Captain Burke?” he called, and Burke turned to see him looking in their direction.

“Ever flown in an airship before?” the British commander wanted to know.

Burke shook his head. “Not had the pleasure, sir.”

“Consider this an invitation then.” Connolly pointed to an unused control station near the rear of the gondola. “Buckle yourself in over there and enjoy the ride. I’ll see to it that word gets back to your men that you’ll be occupied during the launch.”

It was the opportunity of a lifetime! Burke hustled over to the appointed position and settled himself into it, buckling the lap belt in place and keeping his hands off the controls, lest he screw something up.

Fifteen minutes passed as the crew made their final preparations, and then they were ready to get under way. The executive officer, Lieutenant Jamison, signaled someone on the ground, and a moment later it grew brighter inside the cabin of the gondola as the massive canvas tarps that had hidden the clearing from the prying eyes of enemy aircraft were cut away and fell to the ground on all sides of the airship.

Connolly stabbed a button on the control panel in front of him with a thick finger and said, “Bridge to Engineering, this is the captain. Fire the engines.”

A moment later there was a gentle rumble from the rear of the craft, and Burke could feel the airship strain slightly against the ropes that held it secure to the ground.

A voice came out of the grid on the control panel in front of Connolly. “Engineering to Bridge, Chief Machinist Wilson. All engines fired and operational. You have maneuvering power at your service.”

Connolly nodded to himself, then turned to his exec. “Aft guide ropes away, Lieutenant,” he ordered. Jamison delivered a hand signal to the men on the ground, and Burke felt the rear of the airship begin to slowly lift.

When he felt the ship begin to rise, Captain Connolly said, “Forward guide ropes away,” and the same process was repeated, but this time it was the nose of the vessel coming up to meet the already rising stern. A few minor adjustments and the helmsmen had the ship rising smoothly toward the open sky above.

With his gaze glued to the window beside him, Burke watched the ground slowly slip away until they were out in open air and climbing into the gray light of the morning.

Captain Connolly let his ship rise unhindered for several more minutes and then pressed a button on the panel before him.

“Bridge to Engineering. Main engines all ahead full.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the twin engines that Wilson had shown him during training kicked into gear, sending the
Victorious
moving forward at a steady pace.

“Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Signal the ground and let them know that Operation Orpheus is officially under way.”

“Very good, sir!”

As the V
ictorious
rose into the light, Burke was left wondering just who on earth thought it was a good idea to name the mission after a tragic Greek hero who descended into the Underworld to rescue his wife, only to fail at the last minute and lose her forever.

It wasn’t the most auspicious of omens.

Chapter Nineteen

HMS
VICTORIOUS

A
fter the excitement of getting under way had passed, Burke returned to the wardroom. He stood in the doorway for a moment, watching his men move about their tasks, then slipped inside the room. He passed Private Strauss sitting near the entrance, cleaning the Lee Enfield he’d been assigned under Sergeant Moore’s watchful eye, and the two of them nodded as Burke went by. Private Williams and Professor Graves sat on the next bunk over, the younger man seemingly spellbound by the older one’s description of the infectious rot that sometimes spread like wildfire in the wake of a shambler bite, and neither man seemed to notice Burke’s presence.

The next bunk held Corporal Compton, and as Burke moved closer he could hear him reading aloud to himself from the small, leather-bound book he held in his lap.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me . . .”

Manning was sitting on the floor, his back against the bulkhead and his legs stretched out before him. Burke couldn’t be certain, thanks to the fedora pulled down low over the hunter’s brow, but he was pretty sure the man was asleep.

Jones sat to Manning’s left, and he nodded when the captain looked in his direction. Unlike the others, Jones had barely glanced at the
Victorious
when they’d arrived at the field, and Burke had the sense that the corporal viewed the airship as just another means to an end. The joy and wonder of flight held no interest for him; he was just marking time until they reached their destination and he could get back to doing what he was good at, which, in Jones’s case, was shooting things. His eyes were bright, like a predator on the hunt, and something in his expression made Burke feel like he was being sized up, judged even. Having worked with men like Jones in the past, Burke kept his gaze firm and stared back at him without flinching, establishing who was in charge right from the get-go, until the other man looked away.

Jones’s brashness was a good thing, provided it remained firmly focused on the enemy. But if he began to get the idea that he was better than the officers in charge, he’d start to push back, and Burke had to be ready to respond decisively if he did. A quick display of force would probably do more to keep Jones in line than anything else.

Burke settled down on his bunk and dug the map out of the inside pocket of his uniform. He took his time unfolding it, knowing he hadn’t yet mastered the gentle movements needed to use his mechanical hand for such delicate tasks, and mentally clapped himself on the back when he managed to open the map up all the way without tearing it.

His satisfaction was short-lived. Charlie sat down on the edge of the bunk next to him, causing Burke’s weight to shift to one side and his hand to jerk in the opposite direction, tearing a quarter of the map off in the process.

“Sonofabitch!”

Charlie took one look at the expression on Burke’s face and burst into laughter. His laughter turned out to be contagious; Burke found himself busting up, right along with him. When the two men finally stopped cackling, they found the rest of the squad staring at them in puzzled concern.

Which just broke them up all over again.

It was a much needed relief to the stress of the last twenty-four hours, and both men felt better for it. To Burke’s relief, the piece of the map that he’d torn free had been of the French coastline and not an area they were going to need for the mission.

Or, at least, not unless something went radically wrong,
Burke thought.

Pushing that idea out of his head before it could sink its claws into his confidence, he turned his attention to the map and began discussing options with Charlie. They were still at it, over an hour later, when a voice suddenly intruded on their conversation.

“Captain Burke?” the voice asked.

The speaker had a British accent, which wasn’t all that surprising on a British vessel, but what was surprising was that they couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. No one else had entered the room with them.

It came again.

“Captain Burke? Are you there, sir?”

This time they pinpointed the voice as coming from a small mesh-covered box mounted on the wall in one corner of the room.

It was a talk box, though a smaller version than the one Burke had seen Captain Connolly use on the bridge. The devices operated much like a telephone, he knew, with two-way communication between two stations that were dialed into the same channel, but they used radio waves to carry the transmission rather than wires. Now that he knew what to look for, Burke could see the control panel and microphone peeking out from behind some of the gear they’d stored on a nearby shelf.

“Just a moment!” Burke called out, then felt foolish for doing so because he knew the other man couldn’t hear him unless he used the microphone. He got up and quickly crossed the room toward the equipment, the rest of the men on his heels.

The speaker must have recognized their lack of experience with such devices, for rather than continuing to call out the captain’s name, he began to issue instructions on how to use the equipment—the dial to move to zero the channel in better, the button to push in order to talk at the base of the microphone, and so on. With his help, Burke was ready in just a few moments.

“Yes,” he replied into the microphone. “Yes, this is Captain Burke.”

“Ah, there you are. Good, good. Lieutenant Jamison here, from the bridge.”

Burke waited a second to be sure the other man was finished speaking and then mashed the talk button down with his hand.

“What news, Jamison?”

“Captain’s compliments, sir. He asked me to let you know that we’ve just crossed the line and are now in occupied territory.”

That’s it. No turning back.

“Thanks, Lieutenant. I appreciate your letting us know. My thanks to the captain as well.”

“Very good, sir.”

After signing off, Burke returned to his bunk and dug the envelope Nichols had given him out of his breast pocket. He knew the envelope contained additional information about their mission, but he’d been ordered not to open it until they had crossed the front line and Burke took those commands seriously.

Now, though, there was no longer any reason to wait.

He tore open the envelope and pulled out the folded sheets of paper that it contained. The first two were written agreements spelling out the terms under which Burke’s team had undertaken the mission, which he barely glanced at, turning his attention instead to the third and final sheet in the set.

It was a communiqué directed specifically to him and marked
TOP SECRET
in bold letters right across the top of the page. It detailed the mission’s parameters and requirements, including the specific roles each man was intended to play, and the key milestones that formed the backbone of the plan as it had been developed for them by Nichols’s staff.

Burke skimmed through the dense typewritten lines, stopping to read certain parts more closely, such as the description of Graves’s role as the team’s “expert in regard to the sciences, both common and esoteric” and how he had been charged with the task of “collecting any and all information” relevant to those topics. Burke noted that the professor was also somewhat fluent in German, which, even though they had Strauss’s expertise, might come in handy.

Graves’s assignment made sense and Burke didn’t think twice about it. What was surprising to him, however, were the orders regarding the big game hunter, Clayton Manning. According to the communiqué, Burke was instructed to give Manning a free hand if the opportunity arose for him to “expedite the removal of certain key members of the opposition.” A list of half a dozen names followed. Burke recognized only one of them, that of Baron Manfred von Richthofen, commander of Jagdgeschwader 1 and the enemy’s ace of aces.

But he didn’t need to recognize the names in order to understand the role that Manning had been asked to play. Apparently it wasn’t all that wide a leap from big game hunter to government assassin. No wonder neither Manning nor Nichols had wanted to talk about it at the briefing the day before. Killing a man in the heat of combat was one thing, but gunning him down like a rabid dog was something else, in Burke’s view, and he would have protested the necessity of such tactics if he’d known about them.

Too late now.

As Burke expected, the remainder of the communiqué outlined the operational details for getting his team in place to make the assault on Stalag 113, the POW camp where they believed Freeman was being held. He turned to it eagerly.

The plan was simple and direct, which, as far as he was concerned, was the best kind. The
Victorious
was to carry them across the line and into occupied territory before depositing them ten miles from the camp. The
Victorious
would then retreat to the safety of a higher altitude, there to await the signal that the mission was complete. In the meantime, the squad would hike cross-country to a farmhouse where they would rendezvous with a group of French partisans.

Burke’s contact among the freedom fighters was a man named Pierre Armant. According to the documents, Armant’s group was responsible for several recent guerrilla raids against truck convoys and distribution centers. They were well positioned to help them with their strike on the POW camp. They had been watching the camp for the last few days and would relay their observations to Burke. Using that information, he would then decide the best means of infiltrating the camp, rescuing Freeman, and getting them all back out again, preferably in one piece. The partisans would provide backup during the assault and, once the squad busted Freeman out of the camp, would take the group deeper into occupied territory on the assumption that it would be the last place the enemy would look. Upon reaching the departure site, the team would signal the
Victorious
and journey aboard her back to friendly lines.

Burke wasn’t thrilled with having to depend on strangers to provide them with an escape route, but really, what choice did he have? Familiarity with the local terrain might make the difference when it came to a successful exfiltration, and that certainly wasn’t something he or anyone else on his team could provide.

In the end, the details of the plan were still a bit sketchy, but the general outline was there and that was good enough for Burke. It gave him something to work with, and that was more than he’d had when they’d left the ground.

He filled Charlie in on the details, both to get his input and to be certain that someone else in the squad knew what was supposed to happen. That way the mission wouldn’t be in jeopardy if Burke suffered an injury or, God forbid, ended up killed in action.

The two men were deep in discussion of the particulars when Burke felt the ship rock beneath them.

Charlie must have felt it too, for he looked up at the same time that Burke did, glancing at the whitewashed walls around them as if they might provide some answer.

When, after a moment, the strange impact wasn’t repeated, they shrugged and went back to examining the map that they had spread out before them on the bunk. Both men were trying to memorize as much of it as possible so that they wouldn’t waste precious time having to consult it in the midst of the operation.

A few seconds later, the airship rocked again. This time it lurched downward, the angle of attack so steep that anything that wasn’t held down—knapsacks, ammo belts, helmets, and the like—flew through the air. The men swatted frantically at the loose objects as they flew past, fighting to keep their balance and avoid getting struck at the same time.

The ship righted itself quickly enough, but that didn’t stop the men from wanting to know what was going on and looking to Burke for answers. He just didn’t have any to give them.

Or at least, not yet.

But he intended to find some.

The tramp of boots on the catwalk outside reached his ears. Burke moved to the door and hauled it open, startling the group of men who were passing by. Wilson, the chief machinist who had shown him around the
Victorious
earlier that afternoon, was one of them and Burke snatched at his arm as he tried to get past.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re under attack,” he answered gruffly, his attention clearly on the task ahead of him. “Get back inside and secure yourself as best . . . Wait! Are you afraid of heights?”

Surprised by the question, Burke answered before he thought about why the other man might be asking. “No.”

That was all Wilson needed to hear. He grabbed Burke’s arm and dragged him along in his wake, his burly strength overcoming what little resistance Burke mounted before willingly deciding to comply.
Anything to get out of that cramped compartment and get a sense of what was going on.

“We can use your help,” Wilson told him, as they rushed down the catwalk in the direction he’d originally been going. “How comfortable are you with a Vickers gun?”

The Vickers was a heavy machine gun that used a 7.7 mm cartridge. Water-cooled, it had a tendency to jam too often for Burke’s comfort, but the British had adopted it as their heavy machine gun of choice, and he’d trained with it earlier in his career. It was bulkier than the American Lewis gun, with which he was more familiar, but the basic operation was the same and Burke didn’t think he’d have any trouble with it.