Red burning sky, p.12
Red Burning Sky, page 12
“Yeah, about,” Torres said.
Drew turned off the runway and taxied back toward the departure end. The big radial engines sputtered and belched smoke.
“All right,” Drew told Torres. “Your turn. Let’s see if we can cut that distance down.”
Drew didn’t know exactly how much distance they’d have when the time came to land for the rescue mission. But he knew it wouldn’t be much. And they’d have to do it at night. Zero room for error. Both he and his copilot needed to be equally proficient. If the aircraft commander took a bullet from ground fire, the copilot would have to take over.
They practiced short-field landings for most of the morning. Drew offered Torres tips on easing out of the crab angle and flaring smoothly. The aircraft carried its full crew: Navigator Chisholm and radio operator Calvert suffered through the seemingly endless takeoffs and landings. They weren’t there just for ballast; Drew wanted every man on board to get used to what a short landing should look like. At the navigator’s table, Chisholm marked a check on a training form for every touchdown.
Finally Drew taxied back into the hardstand and pulled the mixture levers to cutoff. The propellers spun down, and a ground crewman placed chocks around the main wheels. In a hangar’s shade, the crew debriefed.
“Could we cut the distance with a three-point touchdown?” Torres asked. He was referring to a technique that involved letting the tail wheel and both main wheels make contact at the same instant.
“The book says not to do that,” Drew said. “If you happen to get too slow and drop her in, you could break something.”
“Don’t wanna do that,” Montreux said.
Drew could well imagine what a disaster that would be: a broken airplane on the ground in hostile territory, injured crew members, and, worst of all, an airstrip blocked. Mission failure. The considerations brought to the front of his mind all the things that could go wrong. All his fears.
The crew discussed every landing from that morning—what had gone well, what could stand improvement. While they talked, Drew noticed activity on the other side of the hangar. A GMC deuce-and-a-half with army markings pulled up to the front of the building. Two men dismounted, and they began unloading boxes and cartons from the back. They sorted the cartons by size and laid them out on wooden pallets. Labeling on one box read: U.S. ARMY MEDICAL CORPS, DYED STERILIZED DRESSING. Another read: QUININE AND PHOSPHOROUS TABLETS. Yet another: IODINE SWABS.
Whatever the strangers were doing, Drew decided it didn’t concern him. There was plenty besides Operation Halyard going on at San Pancrazio.
Drew wrapped up his debrief. He asked if anyone had any concerns, and no one spoke up. Drew decided now might be a good time to work on his own concerns—and to see if Chisholm’s civilian studies offered any reassurance.
“Who was that guy you were telling me about the other day?” Drew asked his navigator. “The Roman emperor?”
“Marcus Aurelius,” Chisholm said. “There’s a book of his writings called Meditations.”
“So, what did he meditate about?”
“Stoic philosophy, mainly. He was big on understanding what you can control and what you can’t. Your happiness isn’t based on good fortune or wealth. It’s based on knowing you’ve handled with virtue whatever came your way.”
To Drew, it sounded like Marcus Aurelius would have made a good instructor pilot. Drew thanked his crew for their hard work that morning. Then he set off on his own for lunch. Though he always enjoyed the company of his crewmates, today he had another mission: He wanted to go back into town and check on Sienna.
* * *
At Antonio’s, Drew found a bigger lunch crowd than he’d seen before. Diners filled every table. Soldiers and sailors, Tommies and Yanks, and even a couple of French officers—all babbled in at least two languages and a dozen accents. At first, Drew decided to fly a go-around, to give up and come back later. But Antonio saw him turn toward the door. Antonio waded through the busy tables and pulled him to the little wine bar. Drew took a seat on a wooden stool.
“Always a place for you, Lieutenant Drew,” Antonio said.
“Thank you, sir.”
Sienna emerged from the kitchen with a pitcher of water. Lucia followed her, carrying two plates of spaghetti. Lucia smiled at him. Sienna met his gaze, but offered no reaction.
Antonio brought a new menu. It featured the same misspellings and strikeovers, but included a few new dishes. Obviously, business was good. Drew decided on one of the new items: olives, onions, and sausages.
Lucia came to take Drew’s order.
“I hope you like it,” Lucia said. “I made it up myself.”
“How is Sienna doing? I hope those men from the other night didn’t come back?”
“No,” Lucia said. “You and your friends did a fine job of putting them off this place. As for Sienna, I will send her over so she can tell you herself.”
While Drew waited, he couldn’t help but overhear the conversations around him. Three British officers at a nearby table seemed indignant about something.
“Nasty business, it was,” one of them said. “Just a damned shame.”
“Bloody disgrace,” said another.
Drew wondered what sort of calamity they were talking about. They were British Army officers; none wore pilot’s wings. Maybe they were discussing an infantry disaster. There had been a few: Earlier this year at Anzio, the Allies had nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
“The Frogs simply lost control of their men,” one of the Brits said.
Drew changed his mind. That didn’t sound like Anzio. What were they talking about?
“There are Italian women in Ceccano who’ll have worse memories of the Allies than of the Germans,” another said.
Drew looked up to see Sienna frozen outside the kitchen door, listening to the Brits. She seemed to understand whatever they were talking about, and it clearly wasn’t good. She returned to the kitchen, then came back with Drew’s plate of food.
Sienna set the dish down in front of him. She smelled of lavender and onions. Her modest cream-colored dress was buttoned to the neck, but it couldn’t hide her figure. The long sleeves might have covered the scar on her arm, except that she’d pushed up the sleeves nearly to her elbows as she worked. Her dark hair flowed down her back in a ponytail.
“Lieutenant Drew,” she said. “Can I get you anything else? More olives?” Her voice betrayed no emotion.
“No,” Drew said. “I just… I know the other evening was a bad night for you, and I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Sienna did not answer. She did not smile. For what felt like an eternity—the eternity of the few seconds when a takeoff could go from normal to disaster—she spoke not a word. Some of the color drained from her face.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said finally. “Things would have gone far worse, had you and your friends not been there.”
Without another word, she turned and went back to the kitchen.
From the bar, Drew watched Sienna. She plunged her hands into a sink filled with dishwater and began scrubbing. She paused her work and bowed her head. Looked like she was trying not to cry.
When she came back to the dining room, she had brought her emotions under control. She went about her work as if nothing had happened. She did not look at Drew.
He decided to stay just long enough to finish his meal without doing further damage. He pulled out dollar bills to pay for his meal. Sienna came to collect his tab.
She picked up the money and the paper slip. Crinkled them in her pocket.
“Lieutenant Drew,” Sienna said, “truly, I am glad you were there.”
As she spoke, she touched Drew’s hand. He looked up, and he saw her eyes were brimming.
* * *
When Drew drove back to San Pancrazio, he found the usual afternoon activity at the base. A pair of P-51 Mustangs took off as he entered the gate. Their distinctive whistle-growl rose, then faded as they receded into the blue.
When he stopped by his tent, he found it empty. Tight blankets stretched over each cot. The air hung close and warm. On his own cot, he found a book.
Chisholm had left him a well-thumbed paperback copy of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Drew sat on his cot and flipped through the pages. One particular line caught his eye: Do not act as if you have ten thousand years to live. Death hangs over you. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.
That sounded so much like the paratrooper he’d met in an Officers’ Club weeks ago. The guy had said, “Consider yourself already dead.” At the time, the words sounded so resigned, so hopeless.
But Aurelius expressed the same idea with a different spin. Both the emperor and the paratrooper had found power in their own mortality. The prospect of death did not paralyze them; it emboldened them. Somehow a twentieth-century paratrooper and a second-century ruler had arrived at the same place.
Drew placed the book in his footlocker. He decided to stop by Operations and check the flying schedule. He expected more training flights in the coming week. That routine would probably hold until the OSS decided it was time for the main event.
But in Ops, he found the chalkboard for next week blank. Whatever the sergeant had written there, he’d scrubbed off with the white-powdered eraser. That was no surprise; schedules were always changing. Air force men had a joke about that: It’s operational security. How can the enemy know what we’re doing if we don’t know what we’re doing?
On the flight line, Drew found Montreux at their airplane. The engineer stood on a ladder by the right engine. He’d opened the cowl. Oily rags and a toolbox lay at the foot of the ladder.
“Afternoon, sir,” Montreux said. “Just changing the oil.”
“Need any help?”
“No, sir. I got it.”
The Italian sun hammered the tarmac. Heat waves danced along the runway and taxiway. Drew sought shade in the open hangar where he’d debriefed his crew this morning.
The medical supplies unloaded by the strangers were still there. Other boxes also sat on pallets. Some were labeled: 1600 CARTRIDGES CAL. 30-06 M1. Others read: U.S. ARMY FIELD RATION K. One was stamped: U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS. Drew supposed that contained radio equipment.
Everything was rigged for an airdrop.
Chapter 17
If This Rifle Could Talk
Bogdonavich examined the rifle loaned to him by his new Serbian friends. Scratches and gouges marred the wooden stock. He wondered which of the scars came during German service and which in service of the Serbs. A leather sling dangled from a swivel on the left side of the weapon. Age and use had cracked and faded the leather. Markings on the bolt read: Waffenfabrik Mauser A.G., Oberndorf, 1917.
If only this thing could talk. Bogdonavich wondered where it had been, what lives it had taken. And what journey it had traveled to become his for a time in the hills of Ravna Gora.
He opened the bolt and top-loaded a five-round clip of 8mm cartridges. Closed the bolt, which chambered a round. Thumbed the safety lever to the right, like Nikolas had shown him. Now the weapon was ready for action, but it wouldn’t go off unless he moved the safety to the left. As always, Bogdonavich also carried his .45 in a holster on his belt, but the old rifle offered greater range.
With Vasa’s help, Bogdonavich had talked Nikolas into letting him join them on patrol. He’d presented several arguments: With Piotra gone, the squad was down a man. Also, there were plenty of other men and boys to continue working on the airfield; Bogdonavich could let someone else pound rocks for a while. And why should the Serbs take all the risk while the Americans stayed behind in relative safety?
But he’d never voiced his main reason. He considered this mission a form of… atonement. All his life he’d felt a little embarrassed about his heritage. Some of his father’s ways had appeared so old-fashioned and narrow. America was moving into the modern world of air travel, electricity, and radio. Indoor plumbing, for heaven’s sake. Many of Bogdonavich’s schoolmates came from families who’d lived in the United States for generations. Families that fit so naturally into the life of this century. But Dad, with his folk tales and stories of the Old Country, seemed a visitor. A tourist from another time, who’d never really wanted to leave that time.
Now, however, he saw his father in a new light. Dad came from people like Vasa, Nikolas, Piotra, and Miroslav. And General Mihailovich. They faced their world as it came, with little complaint. What did modern convenience and style matter with survival at stake? Yet they found time and resources to shelter hundreds of foreign airmen when it would have been easier to let the fliers fend for themselves.
Two squads coordinated for this mission—the one led by Nikolas and the one led by Stefan. Men climbed into the bed of the Opel truck, with Stefan and Gregor in the cab. Stefan steered along a dirt road that cut through a pine forest and opened into fields of corn and barley.
Bogdonavich rode in the back beside Vasa. They steadied themselves by clinging to wooden rails mounted along the sides of the truck. The balancing act took a bit of effort, because there wasn’t much room for their feet. A Browning M2 .50-cal from an American airplane lay on the truck bed, along with a makeshift tripod and a metal ammo can. Evidently, the guerrillas had salvaged the weapon from a downed bomber. A hawk wheeled overhead. Bogdonavich squinted up at the bird, wished he could join it in the air. Then he lost the hawk in the glare of the sun.
From what he could gather, the overall mission plan, which included several other squads, was pretty simple. General Mihailovich was deploying detachments to watch the routes into sections of Ravna Gora where most of the airmen were hiding. The lockdown would remain in place until the Americans could fly in and take their men away. Any meddling Partisans or Germans would be dealt with.
At a seemingly random point in the forest, the truck stopped. Trees cast dappled shade over the road. The Opel’s engine idled quietly enough for Bogdonavich to hear birds calling in the branches overhead.
“We walk from here,” Nikolas said.
Without further instruction, what was left of Nikolas’s squad dismounted. The other men moved out of the way while Miroslav dragged out the M2. He hefted the heavy-barreled weapon as if it were light as a hoe. On his web belt, Miroslav carried a hatchet and a long knife.
Vasa lifted the tripod. He carried his rifle across his back. Nikolas took the ammo can, along with a Thompson submachine gun slung over his shoulder. Bogdonavich felt almost guilty that he carried the lightest burden—just the Mauser and a knapsack of field rations. As soon as he hopped down from the vehicle, Stefan sped away with Gregor and the rest of his men. They were to take up an ambush site farther down the road.
Nikolas led through the trees. Vasa trotted close behind him, moving uphill over the leaf carpet as nimbly as a squirrel. Miroslav lagged just a few yards behind them. Bogdonavich found himself in the Tail-End Charlie position. He panted, took long strides in an effort to keep the others in sight. Morning dew clung to weeds and ferns and moistened his pants legs.
He caught up with the fighters at the top of a wooded ridge. From the ridge, the land pitched down at a steep angle into a gorge. A river surged through the gorge. Bogdonavich could not see the water, but he heard it rushing over rocks. He could, however, see a bridge that spanned the river. The bridge appeared to be part of the same road Stefan had taken in the Opel.
Now Bogdonavich understood the tactical situation a little better. He was an airman, not an infantryman, so these things didn’t come naturally. But Nikolas had chosen an elevated firing position above the bridge. If he saw anything he didn’t like, he could chew it to pieces with the .50-cal.
“We need to get closer,” Nikolas said.
The squad shuffled downhill. Vasa nearly slipped under the weight of the tripod, but he shifted to a one-handed grip and crooked his free arm around a sapling. They stopped at a rock shelf a few hundred yards above the bridge. A fairly long shot for the Mauser, but within its lethal range. And well within the range of the .50. Pine boughs sheltered the rock shelf. The branches provided natural camouflage.
From this closer position, Bogdonavich spotted a mill beneath the bridge. Water flowed clear and fast through the raceway, but the waterwheel stood motionless. The mill appeared to be abandoned. Bogdonavich could not tell whether it was still operational at all.
Miroslav bolted the M2 to its tripod. Lifted the breech cover, opened the ammo can, and loaded the cartridge belt into the feedway. Cycled the slide handle. He swiveled the barrel toward the bridge. Aimed left and right. Twisted the tripod to adjust his field of fire. Aimed again. When he was satisfied with his setup, he sat on the ground behind the .50 and took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. Shook out a cigarette and placed it in his mouth. Wordlessly offered one to Bogdonavich.
“No, thank you,” Bogdonavich said.
Miroslav lit the cigarette, exhaled the smoke. A bitter tang wafted through the air; this was one of those harsh smokes of local manufacture. Nikolas crouched with the Thompson gun cradled under his arm. Vasa leaned against a tree and placed his rifle—a Mauser, like the one loaned to Bogdonavich—across his lap.
At first glance, the guerrillas would have seemed in repose, like factory workers outside on a smoke break. But Bogdonavich noticed their eyes. They scanned constantly. The men didn’t talk much, because they were listening. They seemed to fall into a familiar pattern of watching and waiting. This duty had become second nature. Even Vasa looked like a veteran.
An hour passed without a word between them. Eventually Vasa pointed, silently. His teammates raised up for a better look.
A man led a mule pulling a cart. Some sort of equipment lay in the cart.
Bogdonavich opened the knapsack. In addition to rations, he’d also brought a pair of binoculars. He raised the binoculars to his eyes, twisted the adjustment ring. The effort brought the mule and cart into focus. The equipment in the cart was a mule-drawn plow. Bogdonavich passed the field glasses to Nikolas. The team leader looked, shrugged, and passed the field glasses back. The mule clopped across the bridge, its owner oblivious to the weaponry locked and loaded above him.
