Blue Skies Tomorrow Page 23

  Along Lech River, Germany

  Saturday, January 20, 1945

  Ray trudged south in the dark through snowy woods, careful to keep the Lech River in sight to his left. He’d never been this cold and hungry before.

  The Luftwaffe uniform was designed for warmth, with a cardigan under a gray blue service jacket, trousers with a buttoned-in quilted lining, and a heavy overcoat, but Ray couldn’t shake the chill of wearing a dead man’s clothes.

  Johannes Gottlieb was his name.

  Oberleutnant Johannes Gottlieb, twenty-seven years old, black hair, blue eyes according to his identity card, and a few inches taller than Ray and several pounds lighter judging by the snug fit of the uniform.

  Johannes Gottlieb died so Ray could wear that uniform.

  He stopped and squeezed his eyes shut against the mental image of Johannes’s death. The Nazi official committed premeditated murder three times, but he might as well have killed Ray and the other Allied airmen.

  What chance did he have?

  Wearing an enemy uniform within their borders was grounds for summary execution under the Geneva Conventions. Even if he made it to Allied lines or the Swiss border, how would he cross?

  Ray stepped around a thicket of bushes, a good place to hide during the day, but he wanted to press on for another hour. For Johannes’s sake, he needed to press on.

  The first night, he’d ridden Johannes’s motorcycle and sidecar through Friedberg and across the Lech River south of Augsburg. No one pulled him over. When he ran out of gas, he abandoned the motorcycle in a ditch. He couldn’t buy gas with his accent. He didn’t even know how German rationing worked.

  After he’d gathered his supplies into his parachute, he took off on foot. The Lech led south to the Alps, and then he hoped to head west toward Switzerland.

  A futile goal. At least a hundred miles in the dead of winter with little food. His seat-pack parachute held two K-rations with three meals each, and his escape kit contained bouillon cubes, candy, and fishhooks. Poor Johannes had plenty of cash in his wallet, but Ray could hardly saunter into town and buy food.

  Ray gazed at the dark overcast sky through the tree branches. “Lord, I don’t want to lose hope. I need hope to survive even more than I need food.”

  Hope kept his feet moving—hope that somehow he’d survive and see Helen again.

  Why hadn’t he told her he loved her? His reasons seemed good at the time but now felt flat. She’d think he was dead, and he probably would be dead soon. Would it be easier or harder for her to bear the news if she’d known he loved her?

  Ray stepped into a clearing. He stopped short and ducked behind an evergreen tree. That was sloppy. The fatigue, horror, and stress were taking their toll. He pressed his forehead to the tree trunk. Lord, I don’t know how long I can keep going. Show me what to do. Give me a sign.

  He peeked around the tree and strained to see through the darkness. Only a clearing, thank goodness, and not a road or a tributary or the end of the concealment of the woods. A chimney rose in the middle of the clearing where the snow lay flat and even.

  Ray inched forward. A house once stood there, and a bowl-shaped depression beside the foundation showed a bomb had leveled the house.

  Perhaps there was a basement. For once he might get some sleep. He wouldn’t have to hide in the brush wrapped in his parachute to blend into the snow, on edge listening for voices and footsteps, any slumber interrupted by bloody nightmares.

  Ray hiked over shattered, charred, snow-covered timbers and stomped around in his black leather boots. A hollow sound rang near the fireplace. Under the snow lay a trapdoor. He lifted it and descended a steep flight of stairs.

  He groped around in the darkness, over lumpy cloth bags, and he breathed in the earthy smell of potatoes.

  For the first time in days, a smile cracked his face. “Food and shelter. Lord, you are good.”

  Maybe he could stay a few days, rest for the journey ahead. He set down his parachute bundle and went back outside to survey the area.

  Nothing to the east but the river, and the south looked clear. Then he headed west. From what he could tell, the woods formed a band a quarter to a half mile deep along the riverbank.

  When the trees thinned, Ray crouched low. The land before him lay perfectly flat and empty. He waited and peered ahead until the black of night turned to the gray of dawn.

  Far in the distance stood large square buildings.

  “Hangars,” Ray whispered. Not only hangars, but runways and a couple dozen fighter planes dispersed across the field.

  If only Ray could hop in the cockpit of one of those birds and fly away.

  A crazy thought, even more so when he saw the triangular form of the fighters. Those were no ordinary planes. They were jets. Messerschmitt 262s.

  Ray smiled at the irony. He’d reached Lechfeld, his primary target the day he was shot down, a lifetime ago, when Jack told him to go knock out some jets.

  Maybe he could throw some rocks and complete his mission objective.

  Ray crawled backward behind the trees, stood, and brushed snow from his uniform. Damp wool. Dew on the fleece. Hadn’t he prayed for a sign as Gideon had?

  A Luftwaffe airfield. A Luftwaffe uniform.

  A new plan swirled in Ray’s mind, came into clear view, and brought peace. His uniform wouldn’t attract attention around here. He had food and shelter and basic survival gear. Instead of trying to reach the Allies, he’d wait for the Allies to reach him. The dangers of the approaching front couldn’t be any greater than the dangers of traipsing a hundred miles through enemy territory.

  Ray ran his hand over his thickening beard. If he wanted to blend in, he’d better use the razor blades in his escape kit.

  31

  Antioch

  Saturday, February 10, 1945

  “Bumped by a dog.”

  “Hmm.” Helen poked at her ice cream sundae. Listening to her sister’s chitchat in the White Fountain’s Saturday matinee crowd was difficult enough without the envelope calling from inside her purse.

  “Honestly, Helen. You haven’t listened to a word I said.”

  “Of course, I have.” She wiped a chocolate smudge from Jay-Jay’s protesting mouth. “You were talking about the LeRoys. First Police Chief LeRoy died in December, and so young. And poor Leon was at sea and didn’t even hear of his father’s death until he came to port, then when he tries to come home to comfort his mother, he’s bumped off his military flight by Elliott Roosevelt’s dog.”

  “The president’s son himself. Made Time magazine and everything. I wonder if Antioch’s ever been mentioned in Time before? True, Colonel Roosevelt had no idea his dog was getting the royal treatment, and he was appalled. Oops! Jukebox needs another nickel.” Betty sprang from her seat, quite agile for being six months pregnant. Soon Bing Crosby crooned “Swinging on a Star.”

  Little Judy rocked back and forth in her chair, combining Betty’s and George’s charm. “ ‘Oo oo eye eye dee daw,’ ” she sang.

  Jay-Jay tapped his cousin’s arm with his spoon. “No, Doody. It’s ‘Woo doo wike do sing a staw.’ ”

  Betty giggled and wiped ice cream from her daughter’s arm. “He’s turning three next Friday and he knows everything.”

  Helen smiled, but it hurt. Jay-Jay’s hair was trimmed short, reducing his curls to a wave on top. He’d lost the pudginess in his cheeks and arms and knees. Thank goodness he was growing to favor the Jamison side of the family.

  “Heaven’s sake,” Betty said. “Would you go ahead and read that letter?”

  Helen’s hand tightened around her pocketbook. “This isn’t the time. It’s Jay-Jay’s birthday party.”

  Betty hitched up an eyebrow. “And you’re in such a celebratory mood. Go ahead. It can’t make things worse.”

  Helen sighed and pulled out two pages in Ray’s handwriting.

  January 14. The day before he was shot down. Her last letter from him. Even if he survived as everyone in town believed
, in prison camp he’d be allowed to write only a few letters a month, which would go to his parents, not her.

  She pulled herself together and read silently:

  Today went late and tomorrow will be early, so I’ll get to the point.

  You’ve expressed concerns about murderous thoughts toward Jim. Believe me, I’ve had murderous thoughts of my own. Yours is the righteous anger of a wronged woman.

  Please reject the lies. You are not responsible for Jim’s death. If all your lovely ways and words failed to persuade him to treat you properly, you mustn’t believe you persuaded him to enlist.

  You have a good heart that belongs to the Lord, and in time you’ll come to forgive Jim. But you also need to forgive yourself. You fell in love with a charming man—hardly a sin. The stars in your eyes blinded you to his controlling ways and rushed you into marriage—also not a sin. When his true self emerged after the wedding, it was too late. The sin is his alone.

  The Lord loves you, and he’s already forgiven you as you’ve asked. Believe him. Trust his forgiveness.

  Please stop apologizing for “burdening” me with your brokenness. Haven’t I burdened you with my brokenness as well? One thing I’ve learned this year is we’re all broken and in need of God’s healing hand. Our mutual sharing has never been anything but an honor.

  Helen couldn’t finish, not if she wanted to keep her composure.

  “Well . . . ?” Betty played pat-a-cake with her daughter.

  Helen drew a steadying breath. “I’m going to miss his letters.”

  “Nonsense. You know he’s fine. With our troops at the Rhine, the war in Europe will be over any day now. He’ll come home and sweep you off your feet.”

  Somehow Helen managed the eye roll she used when her sister talked that way.

  Betty perked up. “Oh, Dorothy, there you are.”

  Dorothy Wayne pulled up a chair and set Susie on her lap. “Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t bear to wake her from her nap.”

  Ten-month-old Susie rubbed her eyes with her head on her mama’s chest.

  “I can’t get over how much she looks like Art,” Betty said.

  “I’m so glad.” Dorothy kissed her daughter’s straight brown hair. “Art’s been in Italy a year and a half. Sometimes—sometimes I’m afraid I’ll forget what he looks like, but then Susie gives me an Arthur-look and everything’s all right.”

  Helen’s head felt stuffy. Ray didn’t have a child, someone with contemplative gray eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Dorothy’s forehead bunched up.

  “Sure.” However, Helen couldn’t coordinate her smile. “It’s just—goodness, the children—how they’re growing. Soon they’ll be off to school and jobs and getting married.”

  Betty laughed. “He’s turning three, not eighteen.”

  Helen nodded, but she could see the man inside her little boy.

  “So, how are things?” Dorothy’s voice was light, but she gave Helen the confidential look they’d shared since Christmas.

  Helen returned the look. “Same as always.” The Carlisle home rested in the lull between storms.

  “How’s your volunteer—oh, that’s right, you gave that all to Allie, didn’t you?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Helen scraped the last spoonful of ice cream. “Don’t let me forget. I found my notebook from last year’s spring tea. I need to drop it off on my way home.”

  Dorothy’s brown eyes widened. “You’re not going to the Novaks’ today, are you?”

  “Um, yes.” Helen cocked one eyebrow.

  “Haven’t you heard? It’s awful, but Mr. Wayne says it’s better to know the worst than to suffer the waiting.”

  The words buzzed around Helen’s head, and she tried to block them and keep them from landing in her ears, in her mind.

  “Dorothy,” Betty said, her voice firm. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Except deep inside, Helen did know. She’d known ever since the telegram arrived and she couldn’t breathe.

  “Heavens,” Dorothy said. “I guess word isn’t out yet. My father-in-law’s on the elder board. That’s how—”

  “What word?” Betty said.

  Helen’s eyelids fluttered. The glass bowl for her sundae sat before her, white smears marring its clarity. Melted ice cream puddled in the divot where it couldn’t be reached, could never be reached.

  “Yesterday they heard from the International Red Cross. They received Ray’s dog tags.”

  Ray was dead. His body lay buried in Germany, crushed or burned, all light snuffed, never to smile or speak or write again. How—how could such light ever—ever be quenched?

  From deep in her soul, a moan rose and escaped.

  “Are you all—oh goodness, I forgot. You dated last year. Oh, Helen, I’m sorry.”

  Convulsive waves swept her body like the labor pains before Papa gave her ether, not the pains of life straining to light and air, but of death extinguishing her light, choking off her air.

  “We have to get her out of here,” Betty said. “Remember how hysterical she was when Jim died?”

  Betty and Dorothy busied themselves with children and checks and tips, and then pulled Helen to standing. Her left leg wouldn’t move, wouldn’t move at all.

  Betty looped her arm around Helen’s waist and half-dragged her out of the White Fountain. “Come on, darling. We’ll go to my house.”

  Helen’s contractions pushed out deep and animal sounds that didn’t belong on G Street on a Saturday afternoon, but she couldn’t stop.

  “I can’t believe,” Dorothy said. “I can’t believe I was so thoughtless.”

  “She had to find out,” Betty said. “Better now than in church tomorrow.”

  Helen gazed up to the sky, gray as Ray’s eyes, his closed, buried eyes. How could she ever look at the sky again, the sky he loved, the sky that betrayed him?

  Lechfeld

  Monday, February 12, 1945

  Ray sat cross-legged on the cellar floor in his long underwear and leather flight helmet, with the overcoat around his shoulders. He dog-eared his Bible page at the twelfth chapter of Exodus—the second book for the second month, and the twelfth chapter for the twelfth day. Then he wound Johannes’s wristwatch. These two daily habits grounded him in the real world.

  The last of the evening light streamed through the slit of a window near the ceiling. Ray flipped to the verse that spoke to him earlier in the evening. In John 4:34, Jesus said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”

  Ray sighed. “Then this is true hunger.”

  He had no purpose but to survive. He had no one to teach, no one to preach to, and no one to counsel. “Who am I, Lord, if I can’t serve you?”

  The only thing he could do was pray, which he did with increasing fervency. He set his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead in his hands. He praised God for the sunset and prayed to see the next. He begged God to comfort his family, and he pleaded for Helen with his eyes squeezed shut so hard he saw stars.

  “Lord, if there’s some way, any way, show her I’m alive and I love her and I don’t blame her. More importantly, show her you’re alive, show her you love her, and show her you don’t blame her.”

  The light was waning, and Ray needed to finish his evening routine.

  He pulled on his light blue shirt and gray-blue trousers, which were no longer tight. Next came the tie, cardigan, and short fitted jacket. After he pulled on the overcoat, boots, and gloves, he exchanged his warm flight helmet for the peaked Nazi service cap. Last he tied Helen’s gray scarf around his neck and kissed it, the only item to remind him of home.

  He dipped the toothbrush from his escape kit into icy water in his steel flak helmet, and he scrubbed gunk from his teeth.

  He stank.

  Every night he sponged himself off using a scrap of parachute cloth as a washcloth. On Mondays he rinsed his underwear in the river, and on Thursdays his shirt, but without soap, the smell grew ranker each d
ay.

  Ray checked his overcoat pockets for the night’s supplies—the miniature hacksaw blade from the escape kit, his pocketknife, his daily potato, and his two remaining matches. If poor Johannes hadn’t been a smoker, Ray would have run out long before. He’d never been good at starting fires by rubbing two sticks together, and he didn’t look forward to it.

  On top of his supplies, he laid the large scrap of parachute cloth he’d use as a white flag on the blessed day he heard American or British voices. In his breast pocket he stowed more scraps to use as handkerchiefs or toilet paper.

  Ray settled back to pray and wait.

  At nine o’clock he climbed the cellar stairs and slowly raised the trapdoor. Last week after a heavy snowfall, he could barely lift it.

  No platoon of German soldiers met him, and he breathed a sigh of relief and climbed out into the frosty night. No stars shone, nor had they for weeks. Other than the strange whine of Me 262s, he hadn’t heard planes overhead since February 5. Was the Eighth Air Force grounded, or were they concentrating on northern or western Germany?

  Ray tramped north, careful to step in his own footprints so it looked as if one man had come through one time only.

  After he visited his latrine spot, he headed south along the riverbank to the spot where he’d strung fishing line between two bushes on either side of a small cove. From that line, a shorter line hung with his last fishhook.

  The line stretched taut, and Ray grinned. He pulled out a silver fish, about ten inches long. Whatever these fish were, they liked the Lech’s cold, rushing water and gravelly shoals.

  Ray felt like whistling as he headed to his cooking spot, a good distance from the cellar so the sight of smoke or the smell of frying fish wouldn’t draw anyone to his hideout. On nights like this, with a good meal ahead, he took pride in surviving on his own in the wild—behind enemy lines, no less. Other nights he felt more like a raccoon than a man.

  Under a bush at his cooking spot, Ray pulled out the tripod he’d built from branches lashed together with parachute cord, and the wooden spoon and plate he’d carved. He cleared a spot in the snow and started a fire with only one match, thank goodness, and then he set up the tripod with his flak helmet as a kettle.