Blue Skies Tomorrow Page 15

  “Helen—”

  “Let’s get to work.” She headed back to the car. “We’ll drive to the dispensary, pick up supplies—gauze, iodine, splints. Do you have a flashlight?”

  “In the glove compart—Helen, this is crazy.”

  She set her hands on her hips. “Doing nothing would be crazy. If you won’t drive me, I’ll walk, but that’ll waste precious time. Men are injured down there, bleeding, dying.”

  He paused. “Fine. I don’t have time to argue. I’ve got to get down there myself.”

  After they brushed broken glass from the car seats, they drove to the dispensary. Aided by car headlights, a bucket brigade of men shuttled supplies from the partially collapsed building. One man called out instructions, a heavyset man wearing a navy blue service jacket, pajama pants, and a stethoscope.

  Helen approached him. “Sir, my name’s Helen Carlisle. I’m a Red Cross volunteer trained in first aid. I need gauze, iodine, splints, scissors, whatever you can spare.”

  He frowned and looked her up and down.

  “She’s with me, Dr. Thompson,” Vic said. “And her father’s a physician.”

  Dr. Thompson nodded. “Ever use a morphine syrette, young lady?”

  “No, sir, but I’ve seen the training film, and I’ve watched my father give injections.”

  The doctor headed for a stack of boxes. “Take care of what you can down there. Send the serious cases here. They’re setting up work gangs. Try to get those Negroes working for once.”

  Helen winced. From what she’d seen, the Negroes did all the work at Port Chicago.

  With the car packed full of supplies and sailors, Vic drove down the dark road.

  At the fork in the road, a Marine guard pointed them to the left. “Head to the barracks. That’s where you’re needed.”

  “Lots of bomb damage?” Vic asked.

  “Bomb? That was no bomb. An accident, sabotage, I don’t know, but the E. A. Bryan blew to smithereens. Not a bit left of her. Few seconds later, the Quinault Victory blew straight out of the water, broke to bits. Dock’s gone, train’s gone. Ain’t nothing, nobody left down there. Ain’t nothing you can do.” He waved them down the road to the left.

  Helen hunched in the seat behind the box of gauze bandages on her lap, squished between Vic and a pajama-clad officer who apologized in a Southern accent every time he bumped her. Nothing left? Nobody left? How many had been killed? And what would the barracks be like?

  In silhouette, Vic’s jaw jutted forward. “An explosion. Carver Jones warned them. He said this would happen.” He pounded his fist on the steering wheel.

  “Was he—was he working tonight?”

  Vic’s lips pulled tight. “We’ll find out.”

  The barracks still stood—eighteen long, two-storied wooden buildings. The headlights showed window frames knocked out, collapsed roofs, and rubble all around. Men staggered out, supported buddies, or ran inside with flashlights and crowbars.

  Vic parked the car so the headlights illuminated a dark doorway. “Okay, men, you four in the backseat, you’re with me. You two in the front, stay with Mrs. Carlisle, set up a first aid station.”

  Helen spread blankets in the yellow wedge of light, and the men piled up the boxes and gathered scraps of lumber for splints.

  “Ma’am? You a nurse?” A man restrained another man as if he were under arrest. “My buddy—he got glass in his eye, keeps trying to rub it. He’ll make it worse, I tell him.”

  “Your friend’s right.” Helen set her hands on the struggling shoulders, although the blue work shirt was splattered with blood and glass. “Please sit down, sir. Keep holding his hands,” she said to his friend.

  Her patient eased himself down, writhing and cursing.

  “Sir, I need you to be calm and still.” Helen knelt in front of him. She gently pulled down his lower right eyelid and used a square of gauze to lift loose glass particles. “Very still, sir.”

  His good eye honed in on her. “Ain’t never had no white woman call me sir before.”

  She gave him a slight smile. “Then it’s a night of firsts for both of us. I’ve never removed glass from a man’s eye before.”

  She folded back his upper eyelid and repeated the process. Dr. Thompson would have to take care of the glass that had already penetrated the eye. By the time she’d placed a loose bandage around her patient’s head, a dozen men stood in line for care. The Southerner in pajamas rinsed wounds with water from a bucket, and the other officer loaded seriously wounded men onto a truck. Helen sent her patient with him.

  “Helen! Helen!” Vic ran up, supporting a man in torn work clothes. “It’s Carver. I pulled him from under some timbers. He’s cut up. I think his arm’s broken. I gave him some morphine.” He helped Jones lie down on the blanket, and then he ran off on his scissor legs.

  Helen pulled her lipstick from her shoulder bag. “Pardon the indignity, Mr. Jones, but Dr. Thompson needs to know about the morphine.” She wrote “MS 10:45” in red on his forehead, glad she knew the abbreviation for morphine sulfate from helping Papa in his office.

  Jones groaned and clutched his arm to his stomach. Bloody gashes ran across his chest.

  “All right. I’m going to look at that arm.” Helen snipped open his shirtsleeve.

  In the slanted, shadowy light, red blood glistened on blue fabric.

  Jim had worn the same uniform.

  How much had he bled before he died? How much pain did he bear? Did he die instantly or agonize for hours? Even after all he’d done, he didn’t deserve to suffer like that. No one did.

  Helen gasped from the pain of it and turned away for supplies. She arranged two lumber scraps on either side of Jones’s broken arm and secured them with gauze.

  She shivered in the cool air. Oh Lord, forgive me. I wanted Jim to suffer as I did.

  What kind of woman wished her own husband dead?

  20

  Over Germany

  Tuesday, July 18, 1944

  Ray stroked the control wheel between gloved fingers. Black puffs from exploding antiaircraft shells dirtied the blue sky and the thick white clouds below, and One O’Clock Jump trembled whenever one burst too near. The men hated flak more than fighters because they couldn’t shoot back. Ray felt the opposite. The fighter pilot looked a man in the eye and vowed to kill, but the antiaircraft gunners twenty thousand feet below aimed at radar blips, protecting their homeland.

  Could Ray blame them? Jump carried four tons of bombs to destroy an oil refinery at Kiel. Without oil, Germany would perish.

  Ray’s vision darkened again, and he drew a rubbery-tasting draft through his oxygen mask. Despite what Sergeant Bodey said, something was wrong. “Oxygen check, Goldman.”

  The copilot waved a hand in loose circles. His dark eyelashes fluttered.

  Ray shook Goldman’s arm. “Goldman! Leo! Wake up. Hewett, get a portable on him. Radovich, how much longer to the target?”

  “About ten minutes.”

  “Left waist to pilot. Paladino passed out. I’ve got him on oxygen.”

  “Thanks, Tucker.” He flew through a spent shell. Black smoke snaked over the windscreen, shrapnel pinged against the fuselage, and Ray blinked.

  He couldn’t turn back with a full bomb rack when the flak was picking up. After the first abort, someone painted “Chicken Coop” on Jump’s nose. Even after the successful supply drop, Jack would want him pulled if he failed to complete this mission.

  Or was he endangering ten lives—for what reason? To prove himself a man? To win Dad’s respect? To earn God’s favor? What a bunch of baloney. Had he lost his mind? People were shooting at him, his men were passing out, and for what? For what?

  “Novak!” Someone tugged at his mask.

  Ray blinked at Hewett’s pale, freckled, frightened face. “What?”

  “You nodded off. Take a deep breath. I hooked you to portable oxygen.”

  He’d passed out? For how long?

  Goldman, wide-awake, manned the whe
el. “Okay, fellows, listen up. We’ve got to finish this mission. No one calls us chicken. Everyone get a portable and keep an eye on your buddies. Take turns refilling from the main oxygen system.”

  Ray settled the yellow oxygen tank on his lap and studied the controls. “How much farther, Radovich?”

  “We should be there. Don’t know why the lead hasn’t dropped.”

  “Radio to pilot. I know why. The wing command ship says the H2X isn’t working. Head for the secondary.”

  The radar failed. Swell. The secondary target at Cuxhaven lay a hundred miles behind them, forty minutes plus time for the complex act of turning in formation. How long would the portables hold out? What if he and Goldman passed out at the same time?

  Ray groaned. He flipped the radio switch overhead to command mode and informed his squadron commander he was returning to base.

  “Again?” The major’s sarcastic tone drove like a corkscrew into Ray’s head.

  He lowered the plane from her slot in the formation. The group would turn right, so Ray turned left to cross the Jutland peninsula just south of the Danish border. Aiming for the layer of altostratus below, he let Jump build to 200 miles per hour. “Radovich, got a new course plotted?”

  “Highly unlikely,” Buffo said. “He was drawing bunnies on the map. Yes, I put him on oxygen.”

  Jump plunged into the milky pool of clouds, and Ray kept a close eye on the panel. Pilots sometimes succumbed to vertigo and found themselves upside down. As long as he trusted his instruments rather than his instincts, he’d be glad to snuggle in the cloud’s protection.

  But at 12,000 feet, the clouds broke up. Below him stretched German land in neat squares of green with clusters of red-roofed buildings.

  Ray had never felt so exposed, even when he’d forgotten his towel and had to air-dry after swimming in the San Joaquin. He could still see Helen’s amused shock and feel her kiss.

  He shook his head hard. “Boys, keep an eye out for fighters.”

  “Excellent idea,” Buffo said. “There’s a Nazi airfield about ten miles ahead.”

  “Can we skirt it?”

  “They’ll still see us.”

  “Say, Pops.” Goldman’s grin pushed up his cheeks. “Still got our bombs. Can’t let them go to waste.”

  Ray shifted in his seat. He didn’t like the idea, but his duty was to seek a target of opportunity. Perhaps they could destroy planes on the ground and keep them from the air.

  “All right. Buffo, you can use that Norden bombsight for once.” With radar-bearing Pathfinder Force planes in the lead, most of the bombardiers had nothing to do but flip the toggle switch when the PFF plane dropped.

  “Nine thousand feet. Leveling off for the bomb run.” Ray ripped off his oxygen mask and activated the Automatic Flight Control Equipment. With the AFCE and the bombsight, Buffo adjusted Jump’s course to line up the target.

  In a few minutes, the airfield came into sight with crossing runways, blocky hangars, and flecks of planes. Flak burst in ugly black polka dots about a thousand feet too high.

  “Strangest-looking planes,” Buffo said. “Almost triangular.”

  Ray frowned. At the Eighth Air Force bases, rumors festered about experimental Luftwaffe planes. “Schmidt, make sure the strike camera’s on.”

  “Yes, sir,” the radio operator said. “We want proof of this. I don’t want to hear any more clucking in the Nissen hut. We’re no chickens.”

  “True,” Buffo said. “But we’re laying some eggs. Bombs away.”

  Jump bounced higher, relieved of her load.

  “Oh no,” Burgess whined from the tail. “Three fighters. Five o’clock high.”

  Ray groaned and shoved the wheel forward. A fighter could outdive a heavy bomber, but any extra speed would help, and the changing altitude would throw off the aim of the flak gunners.

  “Okay, boys,” Goldman said. “Remember your training. No chatter. Don’t forget to lead. Fire in short bursts so you don’t burn out your gun barrels.”

  The airspeed indicator read 270, the maximum according to the manual, but Ray aimed for 310, knowing pilots had pushed it to 350 or above. The higher the speed, the longer it would take the fighters to close the gap, and the better fix his gunners could get.

  “They’re firing,” Burgess cried. “Ha! Look at that. The tracers aren’t even close.”

  Too far away. Good. Perhaps they were young and inexperienced. Perhaps they’d use up their ammo and fuel before they did any damage.

  Ray’s ears popped. The seat belt cut into his thigh.

  “They’re coming,” Burgess said. “One at six o’clock level, one at five, one at four.”

  Six o’clock? Didn’t every Luftwaffe pilot know a rear attack on a Fort was suicidal?

  “Got one in my sights,” Paladino called from the right waist. “Hewett, Finley, be ready for the break.”

  Ray glued his gaze to the controls. His heart whapped against his ribcage.

  Guns chattered, pops rang out on the fuselage, Hewett swung his guns overhead, and a shadow flashed over the cockpit. Hewett cursed. “Missed.”

  “Damage?” Ray said.

  “Took a shot at me,” Paladino said. “Just added some ventilation holes.”

  “He’s coming right at me,” Burgess cried. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

  “Well, shoot, you dimwit,” Goldman said.

  “I am. I am.” Then he whooped so loudly, Ray cringed from the volume in his earphones.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Finley said from down in the ball turret. “The dimwit got the first kill. Look at him tumble. Woo! He exploded.”

  Ray’s stomach contracted. A man had died a fiery death, and everyone rejoiced. But the next fighter made a pass and laid a row of bullets across the wing. The only way for his ten men to survive was for the other two men to die or decide to leave.

  What a horrible thing war was. But Ray had chosen it.

  The ground zoomed closer. When he leveled off, he’d lose speed and bear the worst of the attack. What altitude should he pick?

  The deck. He’d hit the deck.

  He laughed at the thought. He took her down to fifty feet and buzzed white houses with red roofs. People on the ground held their hats against the propwash and gaped at the sight.

  Ray kicked the rudder to slip to the side around a church spire. He’d always wanted to see Germany, but he didn’t think he’d see it so close until after the war.

  “The fighters are staying away,” Tucker said from the waist.

  Of course. They wouldn’t fire on their own people.

  Once out of town, Ray went down to twenty feet, even though Goldman cussed and wiped his hand over his mouth. The low altitude would limit the fighters’ maneuverability.

  Ray scanned the landscape. He tipped his wing over a tree, and let Jump live up to her name to cross a power line.

  “Me 109 coming in,” Tucker said. “Steep dive, four o’clock high.”

  Bullets and cuss words flew from the top turret behind Ray.

  Jump rocked hard and leaped ten feet.

  “Who’s the dimwit?” Burgess said. “Stupid Jerry didn’t pull up in time.”

  Ray’s chest crushed. A second man had died, a boy like those in the back of his plane. Lord, please make this stop.

  “Ha! Now who’s the chicken?” Burgess called. “He’s leaving. Auf wiedersehen, you chicken. Bawk, bawk, bawk. Anyone know how to say ‘chicken’ in German?”

  “Huhn,” Ray said. “Feiges Huhn means ‘cowardly chicken.’ ” But the pilot was no coward for turning away. Not at all.

  A herd of cows scattered in front of him, and a blue haze glimmered ahead. The ocean.

  A bittersweet smile spread over Ray’s face. “We made it, boys.”

  Antioch

  The sunrise illuminated jagged rims of glass around the Carlisles’ living room window. Fifteen miles hadn’t protected Antioch from blast damage.

  Was Jay-Jay all right? Helen hustled up the front walk des
pite the fatigue gluing her left foot to the ground. Vic held her elbow to steady her.

  Mrs. Carlisle flung open the front door and wrapped twiggy arms around Helen. “Thank goodness, you’re all right. I was so worried.”

  Helen glanced over Mrs. Carlisle’s shoulder. Fine time for her mother-in-law to get affectionate. “How’s Jay-Jay? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. Barely even woke up. You know what a heavy sleeper he is.”

  Helen nodded with a gulping laugh. “Yes. Yes, he is.”

  Mrs. Carlisle raised red-rimmed eyes. “The first blast nearly knocked Mr. Carlisle out of his armchair. We thought it was an earthquake, but then the second blast shattered the windows. We ran upstairs, and there’s our little angel, sitting up in bed. He frowned at me, said, ‘No wake up,’ and dove under the covers.”

  “Where is he? Where’s my little boy?”

  He stepped into the doorway in his blue and white striped pajamas. Helen scooped him up and kissed his sleep-warmed face and tousled curls. “My baby. Thank you, Lord.”

  “Lieutenant, thank you for keeping Helen safe.” Mrs. Carlisle lifted her arms as if to hug Vic, then lowered them. “The radio didn’t report what happened until after midnight, the phones are out of service, and you two weren’t home. We were so worried. When they said it was at Port Chicago—oh dear. We thought poor little Jay-Jay was an orphan.”

  Helen sank to the porch step and clutched her son. She never thought her job would endanger her life.

  “Where’s Mr. Carlisle?” Vic asked.

  “Checking the damage at his furniture store, the dress shop, and with his tenants.”

  Vic took Mrs. Carlisle by the shoulders. “Make sure Helen gets plenty of rest. And send a telegram to her parents. This will be national news.”

  “Oh yes, could you?” Helen asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m going to my parents’ to get a few hours sleep. I’ll stop by George and Betty’s on my way. As for the rest of town, when my mother hears the news, so will all of Contra Costa County.”