A Distant Melody (18 page)

Allie counted Mason jars. The Miller family had rations for six pounds of sugar for October. Allie had poured two pounds into the empty sugar crock, and the remaining four pounds would yield over twenty quarts of applesauce. With Daisy’s help, she could finish before choir practice.

Daisy wiped her forehead and stirred the kettle of boiling apples. “Why does canning season have to be the hottest time of the year?”

“I think it’s part of Eve’s curse.” Allie ladled cooked apples from the second batch into the food mill.

“That and men.” Daisy set her hand on her hip. “Could you believe the nerve of that soldier at the theater? Asking me out—a stranger, and I don’t even know if he’s a Christian.”

“Mm.” Allie cranked the food mill, her stomach as jumbled as the apples.

“I’d never marry a man who didn’t share my faith, so why would I date one?”

“Mm.” Allie didn’t dare speak up, not until she found that Bible verse about how a believing wife could help her husband come to Christ. But what if Betty and Daisy were right, and she was wrong? She couldn’t be wrong. She had to find that verse.

After Allie fed the batch through the mill, she shook out her sore arm. Then she stirred in sugar and cinnamon, poured the applesauce into quart jars, sealed them, and eased them into a kettle of boiling water on the iron top of the white enamel stove.

“Do I smell applesauce?” Mother pulled an apron out of a drawer.

“You sure do, Mrs. Miller. But dontcha worry. We’ll be outta your hair by dinnertime.” Daisy cracked her gum.

Allie winced at Mother’s tight smile. Mother had never said a word about her new friend, but she clearly disapproved of her unpolished ways.

Allie wrapped towels around her hands and hefted the kettle of boiled apples to the sink. “Sugar came in today. I’m thankful I had the ration books with me.”

“Oh, good. Baxter can have lemonade again.” Mother peeked in the sugar crock, then looked up. “Is this all?”

“Well, yes. We need to put up the apples. Two pounds should meet our needs this month.” She drew back from the steam of the drain liquid—and Mother’s rebuke.

“It’ll meet our minimum needs, but you should have saved some for lemonade. Poor Baxter hasn’t had a glass for almost a month.”

Now steam rose in her head, unfamiliar yet uncontainable. “Poor Baxter can put a twist of lemon in his water. These apples need to be put up. We haven’t been able to make cake or pie for months, I know I won’t have a birthday cake, and you’re worried about Baxter’s lemonade?”

“Allie!”

She flung limp apples from the colander into the food mill. “If Baxter wants lemonade, he can buy his own sugar.”

“Allegra Marie Miller!”

“No. He’s over here every single night, eating all our meat, drinking down our entire sugar ration, but does he ever help? No.” How dismaying, how satisfying to speak out.

“Allie . . .” Daisy poked her and motioned to the door.

Baxter stood there, a brown bag in his arm. “The grocer had sugar. I bought a couple pounds—for you.”

The satisfaction of her anger drained away and left her dismay unbalanced.

“Apologize to Baxter this instant.” Mother’s voice climbed and shook, unaccustomed to such heights. “You ought to be ashamed.”

She was, but she couldn’t voice her shame at raising her voice, at speaking ill of Baxter—to Mother, to Daisy, to Baxter himself.

“No apology is necessary.” Baxter set the bag on the counter. “I’ve taken your hospitality for granted for too long.”

“But Baxter, we don’t begrudge you at all.” Mother patted his shoulder and glowered at Allie. “Why, you’re practically family.”

Allie gripped a Mason jar as if she could extract the sugar from the applesauce. She was wealthy, and he came from poverty. He probably never had lemonade in Oklahoma. “I—I’m sorry. I was rude, and—and what I said was uncalled for.”

“Nonsense. You were right.” He smiled, walked up to Allie, and took her hand. “Sugar is scarce, and I consume more than my fair share.”

“But I—”

“Hush.” He laid a kiss on her forehead. “I don’t want to hear another word about it. Water with a twist of lemon sounds delightful.”

Allie stared at him, as stunned by his tender kiss and merciful gaze as she was by her own behavior. “Thank you,” she whispered.

20

Thurleigh Air Field; Bedfordshire, England
October 9, 1942

“Four o’clock in the morning,” Frank mumbled.

“At least it’s not a false alarm today. Finally, our first mission.” Walt guided his razor over his chin. He needed a close shave so the oxygen mask would fit right.

“Four o’clock.” Frank pounded his shaving brush into the soap in his mug. His cheer wouldn’t come out until the sun did.

“Hurry up, y’all,” Louis Fontaine called from across the ablution hut, where the men washed up. “I hear we get real eggs before combat, not that powdered slop.”

Walt caught a strange light in Louis’s eyes—too bright. The men reacted to fear in different ways. Abe Ruben’s hands shook as he dried his face. Frank had some saint’s medal stuffed in his shirt pocket. Cracker dragged from a hangover, even though the bar in the Officers’ Club closed at 2000 hours the night before. Walt felt—well, normal. Eager but calm. Was he peaceful because of his faith, or was he stupid?

If he was stupid, he wasn’t alone. Frank perked up over heaps of real eggs for breakfast, and excitement charged the air in the briefing room. The jokes stopped when the group commanding officer, Col. Charles Overacker, took the stage at 0500 hours. Walt leaned forward in his chair. Where would the 306th first rain bombs on Hitler’s Third Reich?

Colonel Overacker drew back a blue curtain that covered the map at the front of the room. A red string stretched from Thurleigh across the Channel. One hundred eight bombers would hit the Compagnie de Fives steel and locomotive works at Lille in France. The 306th would join the veteran 92nd, 97th, and 301st Bomb Groups in B-17s, and the 93rd would fly the first mission in Europe with B-24 Liberators. It was the biggest mission the Eighth Air Force had ever sent up.

After the briefing, the men went to the locker room to get their flight gear and rations. Then Walt stood in line to turn in his personal effects to the intelligence officer. If they were shot down, the enemy could gather information from letters, diaries, even pictures. Walt only had his wallet and his Bible, in case he had five minutes to read—which he didn’t.

He pulled Allie’s photograph from his Bible for one more look. He’d sent his service portrait a while back, and she’d responded with her graduation picture. Seemed more respectful to have her portrait in his Bible than that cheesecake snapshot.

He closed his eyes.
Thank you, Lord, for strengthening
Allie, for giving her a church, work, and friends.

Louis nudged him from behind. “Give her a kiss and move it.”

Walt laughed and kissed Allie’s picture. He tucked it in the Bible and gave his stuff to the intelligence officer. Now he only carried two written items—his dog tags and a Scripture verse on a slip of paper in the pocket of his heavy flight jacket.

“We’ve got Jerry in our sights now,” Louis said when he climbed into the truck that took the crews to the planes. “Abe’s Norden bombsight.” Abe had already left to carry the top secret bombsight to the plane and install it under armed guard.

Walt hoisted himself into the truck, his parachute slung over his shoulder. “We’ll put those bombs in the pickle barrel today.” That was the claim of the Norden. The bombardier dialed in altitude, airspeed, wind speed, and direction for precision bombing. Let the RAF carpet bomb under cover of darkness. With the Norden, the U.S. could inflict strategic damage with minimal civilian casualties.

The truck pulled up to
Flossie
’s hardstand in the dim morning light. The bombs had been loaded in the middle of the night, but the ground crew still scurried about, making sure “their” plane was in top shape.

Al Worley hopped out of the truck first. “Still can’t believe we have to fly in a plane named after a cow.” But he grinned at Walt.

He smiled back. “My girlfriend gave me a tough time about
Flossie
. She said it’s wrong to dress a cow in leather.” The crew’s laughter smoothed out the wrinkle of guilt when he called Allie his girlfriend. Besides, Frank was right—no one questioned Walt’s manhood anymore or bugged him about going out to pick up girls. And Allie’s frequent and lengthy letters made this story easy to tell.

While the gunners installed their machine guns in the mounts with help from the armorers, Walt and Sergeant Reilly, the ground crew chief, filled out Form 1A and walked through the preflight inspection. At quarter to seven, Walt gathered the men by the nose hatch. After he ran through the mission once more, he burrowed under his Mae West life preserver and parachute harness and into the pocket of his flight jacket. He had misgivings about reading Scripture to the men, but God gave him no choice.

“First mission, men. We’ve got a great crew and a mighty good plane, but we can’t put our trust in machines or ourselves— only in God. The eighteenth Psalm reads, ‘I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.’”

Cracker’s mouth contorted, but before he could make a wisecrack, Bill Perkins sang out, “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”

Wow. The man could sing. Walt wanted to join in, but Bill had a soloist’s voice.

After Bill finished, Louis clapped Walt on the back. “Say, Preach, you’ve got yourself a choir director.”

Walt laughed and checked his watch. Seven o’clock. “Okay, to your stations.”

With the ancient hymn playing in his head, Walt settled in the cockpit, strapped on his throat mike, and put on his headset.

A green flare sprang from the control tower, and his heart lurched. This was it.

He started each of the four engines, which sputtered to roaring life. The final checks of engine performance looked good, and he stuck his hand out the window to signal the ground crew to remove the wheel chocks. He taxied from the hardstand to the perimeter track around Thurleigh’s three intersecting runways. Twenty-four bombers rolled in a rumbling line. Their propwash flattened the grass and buffeted
Flossie
, forcing Walt to keep firm pressure on the rudder pedals under his feet. His eagerness flared into full excitement at the power of the sight.

Overacker’s plane sped down the main runway at 0732, and the other planes followed.
Flossie
was heavy from ten 500-pound general purpose bombs in the bomb bay, but takeoff was smooth. Cracker’s hangover made him useless. Good thing J.P. was dependable.

The 306th orbited the field, and the Forts slipped into formation. First they formed three-plane elements in a V, then lined up three elements abreast. Frank’s plane,
My Eileen
, flew to Walt’s left, his nose lined up with Walt’s tail.

He checked the altimeter—ten thousand feet. “Okay, men, put out those cigarettes. Time to go on oxygen.” He turned to Cracker. “I need you now. Oxygen checks every fifteen minutes.”

He nodded. He looked like a bug with his bloodshot eyes and the black rubber mask hanging off his face. Walt strapped on his own mask, heavy and clammy.

Once over the Channel, the gunners entered their turrets and tested their guns. The .50-caliber machine guns in the top turret, ball turret, waist, and tail, and the two .30s in the nose chattered in short bursts.

The promised escort of RAF Spitfires never came, but neither did the Luftwaffe. Walt climbed to the bombing altitude of 22,000 feet, and soon he saw a wavy white line far below. The blue gray Atlantic gave way to France’s brown and green patchwork. Little black clouds appeared before them. Flak.

Hard to believe he was over France, and on the ground were the real, live, Hitler-saluting, goose-stepping Nazis he saw in newsreels. The flak proved it. Behind each black puff stood a Jerry with an antiaircraft gun trained on a B-17.

“Tail?” Cracker said to make sure no one had oxygen problems. A man could pass out in a few minutes without oxygen and could die in less than twenty minutes.

“Check,” Mario said.

“Waist?”

“Check,” Harry said.

“Ball?”

“Check,” Al said from the ball turret, which hung like an udder below
Flossie’s
fuselage. “But it’s right cold. Could you send some heat down here?”

A black burst at one o’clock low rocked the plane, and Walt steadied her. Shrapnel pinged the underside of the fuselage. The Germans really did want to kill them. Well, of course they did. But this was the real thing. This was war.

Al cussed. “That’s not the kind of heat I meant.”

Walt laughed, muffled in his mask. Felt good, took the edge off. “Okay, men. Fun’s over. Intercom discipline, please. Keep your eyes peeled for fighters.”

The flak lessened past the coast, still no sign of the Luft-waffe, and the group appeared intact. Overacker dropped from the lead, number two engine down, its propeller blades feathered—turned parallel to the wind to lessen drag.

“We’re at the IP,” Louis said from the navigator’s desk in the nose.

The Initial Point, start of the bomb run. “Okay, Abe, aim for that pickle barrel.”

Abe and Walt worked together on the bomb run. The Norden bombsight was connected to the Pilot’s Directional Indicator on Walt’s instrument panel. As Abe lined up the target, the PDI showed Walt how to maneuver the plane. He was glad the Eighth Air Force didn’t use the Automatic Flight Control Equipment, which allowed the bombardier to fly the aircraft through the autopilot. Walt wanted to control his own plane.

Flak picked up again when they neared Lille. Walt sensed his grip on the wheel was too tight. He relaxed his hold to keep his feel of the plane.

“Okay,” Abe said. “I’ve got it. Take that, Hitler. Bombs—”