The Sky Above Us Read online

  No doubt he would make an excellent businessman one day.

  He gave her an encouraging little smile.

  For a second, Violet thought she’d lost her place. But she’d only reached the end of the list. “Those are the activities we have planned for March. Now I’d like to plan an Easter party for the children. Colonel Spicer loves the idea.”

  “Spicer got shot down today,” one of the pilots said.

  Violet gasped.

  “He bailed out over water,” Adler said. “Pugh saw his dinghy inflate. He’ll be fine.”

  “Chuck Yeager bailed out too.”

  “Can you imagine Spicer and Yeager together in prison camp?” Adler’s friend Luis Camacho laughed. “The Nazis will beg us to take them back.”

  The men joked about the trouble the pilots would cause, but Violet couldn’t catch her breath. The group had lost about a dozen pilots, but Colonel Spicer was the first she’d known personally. Such a vibrant man with his mustache and pipe and gung ho attitude.

  “Miss Lindstrom?” Adler said over the laughter. “Tell us about the party.”

  The party, yes. She pulled herself taller and smiled at the men, who quieted again. “First, I’d like to have an egg hunt.”

  A redheaded sergeant raised his hand. “I can procure some eggs for you.”

  His friends hooted and slapped him on the back.

  Violet tipped part of a smile to him. “Please procure them through proper channels.”

  A blond pilot raised his hand—Theo was his name. “I’ve made friends with the folks at a farm down the road. They have chickens. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you. One per child would be plenty.” Violet patted a box. “The children can paint their eggs. I have paints and brushes donated by the teachers at the school where I taught. We’ll have the girls bring their Sunday hats to decorate. They can make flowers from the tissue paper my friends sent. Also, Miss Clark’s mother is donating fabric scraps from her shop.”

  “Thanks, Millie.” Tom Griffith sent her a big grin.

  Millie blushed and hugged the big canvas bag she used to bring donations. The girl and her mother had barely been scraping by before Millie began working at the Aeroclub.

  What a joy to help a needy family. “Yes, thank you, Miss Clark. For the boys, we can organize games like Duck, Duck, Goose.”

  “What about candy?” Griff asked.

  Nick Westin leaned his elbows on his knees. “Why don’t we encourage our buddies to pick up a few extra candy bars at the PX over the next month? With the lot of us . . .”

  “That would be wonderful.” Violet scribbled the idea down.

  “What about music?” A skinny olive-complexioned man pointed with his thumb toward the music room. “Now that you’ve got instruments, some of us are putting together a band.”

  As much as Violet enjoyed swing music, this was a children’s party. “How about . . . could you play children’s songs, but with swing?”

  “Say, that’d be swell.” The musician snapped his fingers and belted out a syncopated version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful.” Violet’s pencil could barely keep up. This was so much fun.

  Guilt clamped around her heart. Service was supposed to be sacrificial, not fun. Great-Aunt Violet had warned her about becoming cozy and complacent in the Red Cross.

  Regardless, she was here for the duration of the war and had to make the best of it. If she had fun in the process, so be it.

  Violet had the makings of an excellent party. “Thank you, gentlemen. I know you’ve had a long and hard day, so I appreciate your participation. We ladies will take care of the planning. I mostly need your help to set up and take down, and at the party. And please encourage your friends to come. Thank you.”

  The men extracted themselves from chairs and called out good-byes while Violet called out more thanks.

  Adler approached. He looked too good with his jacket unzipped and his necktie tucked into the front placket of his shirt. “Great idea for the band. The men will have fun with that.”

  “Thank you.” She could already see the children’s bright little faces. How they adored these high-spirited men with their slang and swagger.

  “You received your instruments?” He glanced out the door, his eyes intent.

  “On Friday. The music room now lives up to its name.” Should she ask? “Would you like to see?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Violet led him across the hall. Why had she given in to that impulse? Spending time with him only fed her infatuation, but they had diverging dreams.

  And Adler was still in love with Oralee, even though she’d been gone for three years. However, that faithfulness only increased his appeal.

  “Here we are.” The profusion of instruments made the yellow walls even sunnier. A piano, a drum set, a box of sheet music, and a stash of instrument cases. “Some of the men in the band brought instruments from home, and some are borrowing ours.”

  Adler squatted, opened a case, and pulled out a trumpet.

  Violet sat on the piano bench with her back to the keys. “Do you play?”

  He fingered the three valves in a practiced manner, but his expression drifted far away.

  Holding her breath, she watched. Waited.

  Before long, he plopped onto his backside, leaned back against the wall, and dangled the trumpet between his knees. “Not for”—he let out a dry laugh—“three years. That night.”

  The night his fiancée died? “Is that so?”

  He frowned at his fingering. “We had a party for Wyatt’s college graduation, big Mexican barbecue. Wyatt on the guitar, Clay on the violin, me on the trumpet. The Gringo Mariachis, we called ourselves.”

  “Because you aren’t Mexican?”

  “Well, Clay’s half-Mexican. After my mother died birthing me, Daddy married again. Marrying Mama was the best decision Daddy ever made, and he’s made plenty.”

  She studied his wistful expression. “You were all close once?”

  His lips clamped together. “Wyatt and I—we struggled together, like Jacob and Esau—but we got along for the most part. But Clay and I were inseparable. Then I ruined it all. They’ll never forgive me.”

  Violet’s chest crushed at the thought. “You know that for sure?”

  Adler shifted his jaw. “Clay told me flat out he’d never forgive me. And Wyatt? Oralee’s death was an accident, but I blamed him and tried to kill him. He had to leave town for a few days to save his hide, for heaven’s sake. How do you forgive that?”

  What a mess. “You don’t blame him anymore. I can see that.”

  “Of course not. He’d never hurt Oralee, never hurt anyone. It’s not in his nature.”

  “Do you think he blames himself?”

  Adler arched one eyebrow. “Why would he? He did the right thing. I was the one pushing Oralee to cross that footbridge. He said she didn’t have to. If she’d listened to him, she’d still be alive.”

  “Does he know you don’t blame him?” Violet crossed her ankles under the piano bench. “I’d think it’d mean a lot to him to know you’ve forgiven him, that you’re sorry for—for trying to kill him.”

  Adler’s eyebrows bunched together. “I ran away from home that night. He—he couldn’t know.”

  “And your parents? Surely they want to hear—”

  “No. Trust me, they never want to hear from me again.” He pushed up to squatting and set the trumpet back in its case. But he lingered and stroked the silver instrument.

  Words stirred inside her, and she released them. “Would you like to borrow the trumpet?”

  One sharp shake of his head. “The valves stick.”

  “Oh!” She darted across the room to a little case on the floor. “This has a bunch of vials and things to care for the instruments. Here we are—valve oil.”

  Adler stared at the vial, then at her. “You have a cure for everything, don’t you?”

  She laughed. �
��Only for the valves. Sorry.”

  He took the oil. “Don’t suppose this would work on my family, do you?”

  Violet smiled down at him. “No, but apologies are remarkably effective at greasing squeaky relationships.”

  Adler stashed the vial in the case and slammed it shut. “You’re naïve, you know that, right?”

  Was that an insult or a tease? “I suppose so.”

  He picked up the case, frowned at her just a bit, and then gave her a brotherly pat on the shoulder on his way out. “Don’t let anyone ever change that.”

  She stared after him. He was the most perplexing man. And the most fascinating.

  18

  Over Germany

  Monday, March 6, 1944

  Nothing to see but white and blue.

  Adler squirmed in his cockpit seat, rolled his shoulders, and glanced at his wristwatch. Well past noon. Past the rendezvous time.

  The B-17 and B-24 bombers were flying a dogleg route, up the North Sea, then down past Hamburg to hit Berlin. The 357th Fighter Group had flown in a straight line to the rendezvous point northwest of Berlin to cover the bombers over the target and on withdrawal.

  If they were anywhere near Berlin.

  Adler puffed a breath into his oxygen mask. No sign of the bombers. No sign of the Luftwaffe. Clouds coated Germany with a generous helping of whipped cream.

  Thirty-three Mustangs spread out over the sky, five hundred feet apart. Shortly after takeoff, fifteen pilots had turned back for Leiston with mechanical problems, including Lt. Col. Donald Graham, the new group commanding officer. That left Maj. Tommy Hayes, one of the squadron commanders, in the lead.

  With the undercast obscuring landmarks, the leaders had to navigate by dead reckoning—time and compass heading. Were they off course? If so, by how much?

  Adler practiced trumpet fingering on the control stick. Lightly. Kept his mind sharp.

  Late last night he’d gone to the far reaches of the airfield to play. He was rusty, but he was surprised how fast the trumpet came back to him.

  How fast the memories came back, tumbling from the bell of the instrument. Wyatt’s graduation party. The humid heat infused with the smell of barbecue, Oralee sitting on the grass in her yellow dress and engagement ring, beaming at him as he played. Just for her.

  Where were those bombers? Where was Berlin? The radio silence prickled his nerves.

  Adler fingered “Ciribiribin,” the hardest song he knew. Like it or not, the trumpet was as likely to summon Violet’s face as Oralee’s.

  How she’d sat on that piano bench, her pretty head tipped to one side, her soft questions tunneling deep.

  Almost three years of refusing to think about his sins meant he hadn’t thought through the consequences. But it was just like Wyatt to blame himself for Oralee’s death. The responsible brother, the serious one. And he lived in Kerrville, where he had to see Oralee’s parents and the hill where she’d fallen.

  Adler started to cuss and stopped himself. He ought to pray instead. “Lord, tell Wyatt he isn’t at fault.”

  He snapped his vision around the bright sky. He had a hunch it wasn’t God’s job to tell Wyatt. It was Adler’s.

  He pounded his fist on his thigh. “Lord, how could I do that? I can’t write home. Daddy . . . Mama . . .”

  Last time he’d seen them was from down on the floor of the garage. Mama—sweet Mama—with a shotgun to Clay’s chest to hold him back. Ellen screaming and crying, hiding under the truck. Daddy, averting his eyes, tossing Adler’s clothes on top of him, a wad of cash, the key, telling him to get out of his sight.

  The pain thrust a fist into his chest, dug claws into his heart, and mauled it.

  He let it. He’d avoided the pain, but now he needed to feel.

  “Where is Berlin, OBee?”

  Adler startled at the break in radio silence. That was Tommy Hayes, talking to another squadron commander, Capt. William O’Brien.

  “I think Berlin is behind us,” OBee said.

  Behind? Adler cranked his head around as if the city would poke its head out of the clouds and wave.

  The P-51s entered a 180-degree turn, weaving over each other in a practiced maneuver, reversing the position of each flight. Now Nick was ahead of Adler to his left.

  Not once had Adler left his leader’s side since that day, but Shapiro still didn’t trust him. Not that Adler blamed the man.

  “Bombers at nine o’clock,” someone called on the radio.

  There they were, coming out of a bank of clouds, a passel of B-17s with squares on their bell-shaped tails—the 3rd Bombardment Division. The 357th was supposed to rendezvous with the B-24s of the 2nd Division, but they’d guard any bombers in sight.

  “Bogeys! Two o’clock!”

  Adrenaline frolicked in Adler’s veins. Lots of enemy fighters, dozens, maybe a hundred, on an intercept course with the bombers.

  “Let’s fight,” Hayes called. “Drop tanks.”

  Adler’s thumb was already on the button on top of the control stick, and the empty fuel tanks fell away from beneath his wings. He tucked in close to Nick’s side.

  The Mustangs curved around to approach the Germans from the rear. Mostly two-engine fighters, Messerschmitt Me 110s, with some single-engine Me 109s and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s flying top cover.

  Each flight of four P-51s picked out targets, Hayes’s top squadron heading for the single-engine fighters.

  One group of Me 110s turned to meet the Americans head-on, and two flights of P-51s peeled off to engage. Nick continued toward the main body of the enemy, which aimed for the bombers.

  “Not on our watch, you don’t.” If only Adler’s glare carried bullets, he’d have shot down a dozen already.

  “Yellow flight, break,” Nick called, giving Riggs and Theo permission to hunt on their own.

  Riggs broke to the left, diving after a pair of fighters, and Nick broke to the right.

  Adler had anticipated the move, and he stayed in position. His eyes entered into his attack pattern, watching Santa’s Sleigh and the sky, especially the rear, freeing Nick to concentrate on the enemy.

  Occasionally, Adler let his gaze slide to the Me 110s. If Nick overshot, Adler had to be ready to follow up. He might have felt sorry for the enemy if they hadn’t been fighting for Hitler. The Me 110 was good against bombers but was too heavy and slow to tangle with the Mustang.

  Nick skidded from side to side, letting each enemy pilot think he’d be the target, urging him to abandon the attack on the bombers and escape.

  Two of them went into a split-S, and Nick let them pass underneath. Adler eyed them in case they came back from behind.

  “Come on, Nicky,” Adler muttered. “Now’s the time.”

  Nick couldn’t have heard him, but Santa’s Sleigh tipped to the left and screamed down to a pair of Messerschmitts.

  “Hoo-ey!” Adler rolled down after him, close enough to assist but far enough to let his buddy maneuver.

  Nick slipped in on the tail of the fighter on the right, and bullets zipped from his four guns. Flashes sprinkled the length of one wing, bullets sparking on metal.

  “Good shooting.” Adler’s finger groped for the trigger on his stick, but he eased it away. Not today. Maybe not ever, but that was all right.

  Smoke streamed from the right engine of the Messerschmitt, then yellow flames.

  Nick stopped shooting, but he stayed on the enemy’s tail as he dove for the deck. A dark urge in Adler wanted Nick to finish him off, but Adler pushed back against the darkness. Their mission was to protect the bombers and to destroy aircraft. Nick avoided killing, and Adler admired that about him.

  G-forces built, pressing on his insides. Down through the clouds they went, and Adler stretched his eyes wide in the murk. The clouds grew patchy, then cleared to reveal the gray grid of a city beneath.

  Not a good place to be. Cities were guarded by heavy antiaircraft batteries. But where was Nick?

  He leveled off his dive and swung his ga
ze around, panic stealing his breath. How could he have lost him? They’d only been in the clouds a few seconds.

  “Where are you? Where are you?” No use calling Nick on the radio. His leader was too busy to shepherd Adler.

  A flaming Messerschmitt burst through the clouds with Nick behind him.

  “Thank you.” Adler wheeled around to join him. The German must have leveled off in the clouds to try to shake the American.

  It was too late. Flames consumed the right wing. A figure tumbled out of the Messerschmitt, then another, their parachutes puffing open above them.

  “Yellow two, let’s go upstairs,” Nick called.

  “Roger.” Adler followed him.

  As the clouds thinned, a full-blown battle came into view, what the men called a “rat race.” All around, fighters zipped, circled, dove, chased, bullets flashing, flames spouting, parachutes billowing.

  Chatter peppered the radio waves—“Got him!” “Five o’clock, on your tail.” “That’s two for me.” “Take him.”

  No way to tell who was winning, but it sounded good, looked good. Only brown German parachutes in sight.

  Something darkened the rearview mirror Beck had welded to Eagle’s canopy. “Yellow one, four o’clock.”

  “Let’s go.” Nick dove a bit, then nosed straight up.

  Adler mimicked his actions. Nick was doing an Immelmann turn to reverse direction and gain altitude and advantage.

  At the top of the loop, hanging upside down, Adler slowly rolled Eagle to upright, his feet on the rudder pedals and his hands on the stick and throttle, all working in harmony.

  Now their would-be attacker was below them at ten o’clock.

  Before the German could react, Nick went into a steep diving turn. His bullets stitched a line down the center of the Messerschmitt’s fuselage.

  Adler whistled. And he thought he had a good deflection shot. “That’s why you’re an ace, buddy.”

  The fighter slid onto one wing, then tumbled slowly. The pilot must have been injured or killed. Adler winced, but if that Messerschmitt had continued on course, it could have shot down a B-17 and killed ten men.

  “Chalk one up for Riggs.” That was Riggs’s voice.