Rockets Versus Gravity (14 page)

The playful sparkle returns to her cornflower-blue eyes, and she says, “If you decide that you don't like them, come back and see me tonight, and maybe I'll give you a pair that you'll like better.” She thrusts her chest forward, and her dark eyebrows arch upward in the middle. “I think you'll be satisfied, though. Warm and tight. You can slide right in.”

Later that night, while the rest of the personnel at the base are sipping whiskey and playing cards and otherwise distracting themselves from (or fortifying themselves against) tomorrow night's big mission, Dan will indeed pay Mary a visit in the darkened aisles of the supply depot.

Wrapped in the flickering glow of emergency candles and the scratchy warmth of the wool blankets that Mary has “borrowed” from the supply shelves, Mary's nipples will press into the warm flesh of Dan's palms, and her slim fingers will roll the military-issue condom onto Dapper Dan's ample appendage.

Mary will giggle as Dan quotes the slogan from a film he had to watch during training:
“Don't forget! Put it on before you put it in!”

But then everything will become serious again as Dan presses into the warmth of Mary's body, again and again and again, life and death and life and death and life, again again again.

He will destroy her and he will heal her with every stroke, and she will absorb him and rebirth him over and over and over.

He will need this contact and this release, and so will she. It will help them both to survive another day.

After the emergency candles have burned out, Mary will hold Dan's face and whisper, “Stay alive for me, Daniel.”

Mary is the only person who ever calls him Daniel.

Daniel will pull Mary closer to him, and he will whisper in her ear, “You're a good reason to stay alive.”

“
Gawd-damned
old pervert,”
Nurse Sheila shrieks in her air-raid- siren voice, as she spins Dan away from his view of Clementine's receding backside and shoves his wheelchair into the bathing room.
“You
gawd-damned
men are all the same. Drooling over these little hussies! Sluts like her are a dime a dozen, mister.”

She strips him like a prisoner of war and then shoves him onto the plastic seat inside the geriatric tub, slamming the door closed and turning the taps on.

“A little warmer, please,” Dan says. “I don't like cold water.”

“Good gawd,”
Sheila croaks,
“the water's fine! You're not the only dirty old man I've got to wash today, you know. This isn't a luxury hotel. This isn't a spa.”

“I don't like cold water,” Dan repeats.

“You'll live,”
Sheila barks.

As she slathers his face with liquid soap, Dan drifts backward once again.

T
his mission is going to be a long, high, cold one, mostly over water, so one of the ground crew smears Dan's face with an extra-thick layer of antifreeze ointment. This is fine with him; he doesn't want his skin to be cracked and chafed from frostbite when he sees Mary tomorrow.

Usually, Dan is inclined to leave a few pieces of gear and clothing behind to give himself a bit more room to move in the tail turret, but Mary's voice has been echoing in his head since last night, saying,
“I want you to be safe up there, Dapper Dan
.” So today he wears it all: the silk stockings, the woolen kneecaps, the thermal underwear with the long sleeves and high neck, his combat uniform shirt and pants, the thick white sweater and battledress top, the electrically heated inner suit, the kapok-filled outers. And even though it restricts his movement and makes him feel like a stuffed seal, Dan is even wearing his Mae West life jacket; they'll be flying in high over open water to attack a naval facility, and, if there's a bailout, Dan isn't the best swimmer in the world.

He pulls his new fur-lined flying boots on overtop his heated slippers. There is nothing stylish about these boots, but they will keep his feet warm. A tight-lipped grin spreads across his face as he thinks of Mary saying,
“Warm and
tight-fitting
. You can slide right in.”

He pushes his fingers into his white silk gloves, then the heated inner gloves, and then the leather gauntlets.
Mary
,
he rehearses,
would you do me the honour of …

His crew hasn't been assigned to one of the new Lancasters after all, so there will be no roomy new Rose turret for Dapper Dan Springthorpe. The bird they're flying is a battered old beast, with sheet-metal patches riveted all over the fuselage like Band-Aids over the bullet holes, and a few gleaming new parts affixed where the old ones were blasted off.

Dan makes his way through the fuselage, through the armoured door at the rear of the plane, and he crams his extra-padded body into the tail gunner's turret. He considers leaving Mae West on the other side of the blast door with his parachute, but then he hears Mary's voice once again:
“I want you to be safe up there, Dapper Dan
.”

The Tail End Charlie who occupied the turret before him has already cut away all of the Perspex and armour from between the guns, which has to be done if you actually want to see whatever you're shooting at during a night mission. This previous gunner must have survived his tour, because he's scratched a message into the metal seat:
30 Flights — S
TILL
A
LIVE
.

Dan has a good feeling about flying in a plane that has survived a lot of missions; this Lancaster is a survivor, just like most of Dan's crew. Sure, there was that
eighteen-year
-old bomb-aimer who got a stray bullet in the jugular vein when that rocket hit the belly of the Lancaster and exploded a box of ammunition; there was the craggy-faced veteran bombardier (an “old man” of thirty-one) who dropped dead from a heart attack minutes after releasing the last blockbuster on that dam-busting mission; but the other five men on the crew are nearly home free. This mission is their thirtieth.

After thirty flights, you have served your country sufficiently, and your tour of duty is officially over. You can head back home if you want to (although there will be some pressure to stay on and “see the job through”). None of the boys on the crew have mentioned it today, though; nobody wants to jinx this flight.

As soon as his boots touch the runway again tomorrow morning, Dan Springthorpe will sprint to the supply depot, where he will drop to his knees before Mary. The next thing he will do is book two tickets on the first boat back to Canada.

The four V12 Rolls Merlin engines roar to life, and the patched-up old Lancaster shudders up into the air, thirty-six thousand pounds of aircraft, eighteen hundred gallons of fuel, and twelve thousand pounds of bombs straining against the tug of gravity.

Dan takes the message scratched on the seat beneath him as a positive omen: 30 Flights — S
TILL
A
LIVE
.

This is your lucky day, Daniel Springthorpe
, he tells himself.
Nobody is taking your bird down today.

“
Good gawd, man!”
Nurse Sheila rages.
“Have you gone even more deaf, or are you just ignoring me? I'm not going to ask you again. Lift your
gawd-damned
arms!”

Dan looks at her and says, “Nobody is taking this bird down today.”

“Good gawd,”
Sheila grunts, gripping his thin left arm in one of her meaty paws.
“You're losing your mind, and you're taking mine with you!”

She wrenches one of Dan's thin limbs upward and then scrubs under his armpit with a sponge as if she's trying to scour rust from old steel.

“Ow! Ow! That hurts!” Dan cries.

“Oh, my gawd! Are you a man or a little crybaby?”

“The water's too deep! It's too cold! You're hurting my arm!”

“Suck it up. Be tough. Believe me, I want to get this over with as much as you do.”

S
earchlights slash the sky. Luftwaffe night fighters swarm around the Lancaster like bloodthirsty mosquitoes.

“Oh! Oh! It hurts!”

The words buzzing through the intercom belong to the navigator. A Messerschmitt Bf 109 has just hit the belly of the Lancaster with machine-gun fire, and one of the bullets has torn through the navvy's thigh. The top gunner shoots down the 109 a moment later, but this news isn't easing the navigator's pain, nor stopping his blood from gushing out of his body.

Dan Springthorpe squeezes the grips that control the Browning
three-oh
-threes, and he scans for incoming German fighters, while repeating to himself, “Thirty flights, still alive. Thirty flights, still alive.”

The pilot has pushed the Lancaster all the way up to
twenty-five
-thousand feet, above the anti-aircraft fire, and the veteran bird is shuddering from the stress of the climb. The sky behind the bomber is thick with smoke and debris, backlit by exploding shells and flashing cannon fire. Just below the tail of the Lancaster, Dan watches Halifaxes and Stirlings bursting into flames and disintegrating in the cloud of flak.

The Merlin engines are screaming as the pilot races away from the flashing chaos in the air behind them, and the burning naval yard beneath them.

A sudden jolt rips through the body of the Lancaster.

Dan's skull slams against the back of the turret as the tail whips upward; the nose of the plane is pointed down. The pressure of the sudden dive makes his brain feel like it's going to explode; they are falling
fast
.

Panicked voices hiss through the intercom: “Pull up! Pull up!”

Dan repeats to himself, “Thirty flights, still alive. Thirty flights, still alive.”

And then, there is a metallic groan. A convulsion ripples through the fuselage, and the Lancaster levels. Somehow, the pilot has managed to pull the injured bird out of its suicide dive.

“Starboard engines are burning!” another voice crackles through the intercom. “Feather engines! Feather engines!”

Flames flash past Dan's turret. Strips of metal skin peel from the Lancaster's tail fins, revealing the framework underneath.

“Thirty flights, still alive. Thirty flights, still alive.”

The Lancaster trembles as more bullets pummel its skin.

“Where the hell
are
you bastards?” Dan hollers. He desperately searches for the attackers, but he can't see them anywhere; they must be above, below, or beside them. The mid-upper gunner will have to get 'em, if he is still alive.

There is another rattle of machine-gun fire, and the bubble window beside Dan explodes. A sharp, burning sensation cuts into his right arm. Blinded by the Perspex dust in his eyes, he feels around for the electrical cords and disconnects his heating suit before he is electrocuted. He accidentally disconnects his oxygen supply, too, but he cannot see to reconnect it properly.

“Abandon aircraft!” comes the command through the intercom. “Bail out, boys! Bail out! Bail —”

The intercom speaker screeches and dies.

As if the blindness isn't bad enough, Dan is becoming woozy and disoriented from oxygen deprivation. He manages to reach behind him, and he levers open the armoured door. He rips off his layers of gloves to more easily feel for his parachute.

After seconds that feel like eternity, Dan's fingers feel it, grab at it greedily, and he manages to snap the parachute onto his harness. Hopefully it hasn't been damaged in the attack. Hopefully it will open when he needs it to.

Now Dan feels for the controls to rotate his turret to one side so his escape hatch will be facing outward.

Nothing happens. The hydraulic system is damaged. The turret will not rotate.

The tail of the burning Lancaster pitches upward again, and the two remaining live engines scream against the fall.

Broken plastic and twisted metal slash at Dan's bare hands as he gropes for a hole in the turret big enough to pull himself through. His muscles strain against the force of the crippled bomber falling, but somehow he manages to wriggle his shoulders and hips through the jagged hole in the smashed turret.

And then his foot catches on something inside; he is still blind, he can't see what's holding him, but it feels like a cold metal hand is clutching his ankle. It's probably a cable or cord wrapped around his foot.

The engines shriek as the bomber plummets.

Dan twists and pulls and tugs, but whatever is holding him will not let go. If he had a pistol in his hand right now, he would blast off his own foot just to free himself from the doomed aircraft.

“I guess this is it,” he says to himself.

Then, as he relaxes his toes, his foot slips free from inside the fur-lined boot. It slides right out.

As Dan spirals through the air, it feels for a moment like he is flying free rather than falling fast.

The wind batters his face, and tears stream from his eyes. Everything is dark and blurry, but he can see again. He can see.

He hears Mary's voice again — “
Stay alive for me, Daniel
” —
which reminds him to tug on the rip cord.

He is grateful when the parachute blossoms open overhead.

He sees the ring of flames as the Lancaster crashes into the black water below.

He flutters downward, acutely aware that he isn't dead; he feels the blood pumping through the arteries in his wrists, where he clings to the parachute straps.

He sinks feet first into the cold, churning waves.

He releases his connection to the parachute so it can't drag him under the water.

He hopes that the rest of the crew managed to bail out in time.

He imagines that somehow his mates are still alive.

A wave of cold water washes over him, but also a wave of gratitude.