Fly Boy (19 page)

“Davie, are you in there?” Jed asked.

I started slightly. “I’m here,” I said quietly, hidden in the darkness. I brushed away the tears with the back of my hand. I was so grateful for the darkness, and for the fact that I didn’t have to share a room now.

“Were you sleeping?”

“Not sleeping, just resting my eyes a little.” I was trying to make my voice sound normal, but it wasn’t quite right.

“Being up all night can really play havoc with your sleeping schedule. Are you coming for dinner? They’ve done up a nice roast for Christmas Eve.”

“In a bit.”

“Don’t leave it too long or there’ll be nothing left. You know the boys can eat.”

“I won’t be long.” My voice definitely sounded off.

“You know, Davie, it’s better to be with other people than by yourself at times like this.” Jed took a step into my room. “Mind if I turn on the light?”

“Sure … of course.”

The light came on, catching me wiping my eyes again, and I tried to pretend I was just shielding them from the brightness.

He took the chair from my desk, spun it around, put it down right in front of me, and sat on it backwards.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I’ve been better.”

“It’s hard to be away from your family any time, but Christmas is the hardest.”

“It is hard.” I sat up on the edge of my bed.

“I don’t mind telling you, I’ve shed a few tears today,” he said.

“Really?”

“It’s not a sign of weakness, you know, just caring. You’ve been crying?”

“A bit,” I admitted.

“It’s natural. I know I miss my wife and son tremendously. This is my third Christmas away from them.”

“That’s rough … rougher, I guess … It’s not like I have a wife or kids.”

“You’d better
not
have kids yet!” He laughed. “But I’m sure you must be missing your family.”

I nodded my head. “A lot.”

“Who’s at home?”

“I have a younger brother and two little sisters, and of course my mom.”

“It must be pretty hard on all of them, what with you and your father both being gone.”

“This is his third Christmas away too. I know how much harder he has it than me, so I shouldn’t be complaining.”

“We all know there’s no point in complaining … Stiff upper lip, as the English say.”

I was a bit guilty about feeling so sorry for myself—lots of people were far worse off—

“But you know, we’re not English,” Jed said. “And it takes a strong man to realize that he might not be so strong
all
the
time. You have a right to feel a bit blue. You know what made me feel better today … well, a little better?”

“What?”

“I just finished writing home. I try to write to them as though they’re right here in the room with me and we’re just having a little talk. When was the last time you wrote home?”

“A week or so ago.”

“Maybe it’s time to start a letter. I bet your mother would really like to hear from you.”

I nodded.

“It’ll make it seem like they’re closer.” He got up and put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a good kid. I’d be proud to have you as my son.”

I felt the same about him—as if he was kind of a second father. He was more than my pilot, my crew member. He’d been there to take care of me from that first night outside the pub.

“I’ll make sure to save you a good piece of roast beef and some Yorkshire pudding.”

“Thanks.”

“But I’ve got to be honest with you—if you take too long, I may eat your pudding myself. After supper a few of us are heading into town for a Christmas Eve service. Are you going to come along?”

“I’d like that. If I was home, we’d be going to church.”

Jed smiled and left the room. I got off my bed and brought the chair back over to the desk and sat down.

I’d write, but I wasn’t sure what to write about. It was different for Jed—he could tell his family what he was doing, what his days were like, talk to them as though they were sitting right there with him. There was no way I could write
a letter like that, because my mother didn’t even know I was here.

Instead, I’d have to make up things about being in school, and how I was getting over the pneumonia that had kept me from coming home over Christmas. It would give her some comfort, but how was it going to make me feel better to write her a bunch of lies? Maybe it was time I told the truth.

I pulled a pen and some writing paper out of the desk drawer.

Dearest Mother
,

I am writing to you on Christmas Eve—my first Christmas apart from my family. I know that this must be as hard for you as it is for me. I’m feeling a great weight of sadness. This is not simply because I miss my beloved family, but also because I feel tremendous guilt over the manner in which I’ve deceived you and everybody else. I’ll try to explain my actions as best I can
.

I clearly remember the reasons behind my decision—although they have such a dreamlike innocence to them when I think of them now. I felt that I had an obligation to serve—for King and Country—to help stop the Nazis. I believed in the just cause of this war and that we needed to defeat our enemies
.

It was also, very much, a personal decision. I think in the back of my head, I believed that by coming over here not only could I be closer to Father, but I might also, by my involvement, help to bring him home sooner. I know, in hindsight, that this thinking might seem rather juvenile—and in fact many of the thoughts and beliefs that brought me here could be described as those of a silly boy
.

My decision was made in a rush of youthful exuberance. It was all a sort of game—a game in which I would need to fool
everybody so I could be shipped overseas—and beyond that, the war itself, from afar, I saw as simply glamorous and exciting. The danger I imagined was abstract and merely added to the excitement. The only threat I could imagine was to our German enemies. I could not conceive of dying, or being injured in any way. I felt invincible
.

While I have been gone slightly less than four months, I feel that many of these immature and juvenile thoughts have left me. I am no longer a boy. I feel so much older. I think about things I would never have dreamed of before. I spend time contemplating life and death and the meaning of both. Death is in my thoughts because it is my constant companion
.

As strange as it may sound, this has made me appreciate life more than I ever did before. I think I took things for granted— a beautiful sunrise, the support of a friend, and the love of my family. Perhaps when everything can be lost in the next few moments or days, you truly learn to value what you have
.

I know this is not a game. This is not play. This is deadly serious. Lives are taken and lost. I have seen people I know die. I can’t really know of the deaths that have taken place below as a result of my actions, but I have seen the devastation that we cause. I console myself by hoping and praying that it is only enemy soldiers who have perished—although I know that they too have mothers and wives and children who love them. In all likelihood some of those innocents have also perished by our actions
.

Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if I had never started along this path. I have thought about—really fantasized about—simply snapping my fingers and undoing all that I have done, waking up in a bed back home. Then I realize that even if I had that magical power, I would not be able to use it. I have set out upon a course and must follow it to the end. I cannot
abandon my friends and my crew mates. This is my place. This is my life. I am part of something important, vital, and necessary. We are fighting against a terrible evil, and this is now my place
.

If you receive this letter, it is because I am not coming home, because I have been killed or captured. I need you to know how much I love you. You have been the best mother a boy could ever have and I beg your forgiveness for the sadness I will have caused
.

With great love
,

Your son
,

Robert

I took the letter, folded it, and slipped it into an envelope. I sealed it and wrote my mother’s name across the front and then added,
Please send to my mother in the event of my death or capture
, and placed it back in the drawer.

It was done, and it did make me feel a little bit better. At least she’d know the reasons why I’d done this and she wouldn’t blame herself.

I left my room and heard voices—singing. As I hurried down the hall, the voices got louder and stronger. I stopped at the door of the mess hall, stunned. The lights were out and the whole room was filled with candles, and all of the men, hundreds and hundreds, were on their feet, singing “Silent Night.” Many of them were standing with their heads bowed. Others were holding hands and swaying ever so slightly to the music. The singing was simply beautiful. I stepped into the room and joined in the song.

Silent night, holy night
,

All is calm, all is bright
,

Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
,

Holy infant so tender and mild
,

Sleep in heavenly peace
,

Sleep in heavenly peace
.

My voice caught and I knew I was going to start to cry. I tried to choke back the tears, but I noticed that all around me men were crying. So I let the tears flow. I didn’t know if I could have stopped them even if I’d tried.

I stomped my feet and rubbed my hands together to try to drive away the cold. We hadn’t even got up to cruising altitude yet, but the plane was already freezing. We’d been told that it had snowed last night—not at our base in England but in the territory we’d be flying over—and thank goodness the cloud cover still remained. Nobody wanted to fly in a storm, but clouds gave us someplace to hide from enemy aircraft and gunners on the ground.

Below us, the French countryside—invisible from this height and in the darkness—was supposedly coated in a fresh layer of white. I imagined it must look very pretty, with most of the visible destruction of war covered up. I used to think that someday I’d come back and see it—either after France had been liberated or maybe even later, long after the war was over. Right now, though, I was happy to have a lot of distance between me and the ground.

It was wet and drab back at our base—typical English wintertime weather. No snow, just lots of rain and drizzle that turned the earth into grey, grimy mud. It just didn’t seem like Christmas without snow. There was almost always snow on the ground back home at this time of year, and I couldn’t help picturing what their Christmas morning must have been like: fresh white snow, smoke rising from the
chimney, the house all decorated, and us sitting around the Christmas tree, sipping hot apple cider, taking turns opening presents, my brother and sisters squabbling … Even that would have been music to my ears.

“Davie, do you have that course change plotted?” Jed asked over the intercom.

“Got it plotted. Stay the course for another”—I looked at my watch—“eight minutes.”

“Good, just making sure you’re still awake back there.”

“I’m awake.”

“I don’t want any of you falling asleep,” Jed said.

“That would be almost impossible with all this chattering going on,” Jacko replied. “Could we at least talk quietly? My head feels like it’s going to split in two.”

“A little too much celebration?” Jed replied.

“A
lot
too much celebration. That’s what happens when they give us a couple of days off.”

We hadn’t flown a mission on either Christmas Eve or, technically, Christmas Day. It was a small respite from the war for both us and the people on the ground. It was sort of odd and sweet all at once—taking a day off from war to honour the Prince of Peace.

It had been three in the morning on December 26 by the time we got in our planes and up into the air. We’d been delayed partially by the storm on our route, but it was also a late-start mission. Missions were flown at different times, often the later the better, because the gunners below went to sleep, lulled into thinking their site had been saved that night. As it was, we would now be over our target before first light, find the flares, drop our bombs, and get out before the sun rose.

We were in a formation of six. Ahead of us were three more planes, the finders, and behind us was the main body of the squadron, over a hundred heavy bombers from squadrons across England. I found myself humming “Silent Night,” but this was not going to be a holy night or a calm night. On the other hand, we were going to drop enough incendiaries to make it bright.

“Are the bombs fused and selected?” Jed asked.

“Fused and selected, ready for drop,” Drew replied. “Our very own Christmas presents for the Krauts.”

There was chuckling over the intercom from different people in different parts of the plane. I pictured the bombs. The ground crew had “decorated” them, painting on bows and inscriptions like
Do not open until Christmas
and pretend name tags that read
For Hans
.

“Waiting for your mark to—”