Amerika (38 page)

‘You missed kissing Clark Gable.’

A long pause. ‘Fine by me, I’ve got you instead.’

I stopped and looked at her. She looked back. ‘Don’t take that the wrong way.’

‘How should I take it?’

‘I meant that I admire you, that’s all.’

‘I see.’

‘No you don’t see, and please forget that I even said it. I feel like an idiot.’

‘Join the club.’

She laughed and looked away. Then suddenly turned back, her eyes dancing, her mouth twisted in a puzzled smile. ‘Keep a secret?’

‘Shoot.’

‘Uncle Georgie is not my uncle. He’s my father. I just found out.’

‘Excuse me?’

She grabbed my arm. The words came out in a happy rush. ‘Mother came to my room last night, sat on the edge of the bed, held my hand and told me that after General Longstreet died, she decided she wanted a child, but not a husband to go with it. So she seduced General Patton when he was a young captain and that -’

‘Wait a second, hold on -’

‘Of course HE doesn’t know I’m his daughter.’ She laughed. ‘Poor thing is happily married, has children, reads the Bible, pious as a damned saint.’

‘Why are you telling me all this?’

‘Because I’m happy. Deliriously happy.’’

She impulsively hugged me and I hugged her back.

‘Not angry?’ I said.

‘Of course not. Mother always told me I was adopted. And my whole life I’ve wondered who my parents really were, where they lived, what they did. Now I know.’

‘But she lied to you all those years.’

‘Wake up, Sam. You’re a southerner, you know what it’s like down here.  She had no choice.  If  anyone  had  found  out  her  secret,  Uncle Georgie’s career would have been ruined; his family’s too, not to mention the  scandal  of  the wife of the high and mighty Confederate General  James Longstreet having whored around with a soldier boy. And a Yankee at that.’

‘How did she - I mean-’

She clapped her hands and laughed. ‘It’s better than a movie. It happened during the Civil War fiftieth anniversary celebration up in Gettysburg.   Mother   had   volunteered   to   help   out   with   her   fellow southerners. My father - gosh, I like saying that - he was with an army detachment assigned to help the old timers get through day after day of ceremony and speeches. But the nights were all their own.

‘Mother knew Patton from other social occasions. So it was only normal she would invite him to a nice quiet dinner at her hotel, and he, being far away from home, accepted. You may not know it to look at her, but mother is a perfect temptress. Even with her cigar - hell, probably because of it. Anyhow, Georgie-porgy took the bait, got good and soused, they did the delightful deed, and nine months later...’ She gave a small curtsey. ‘She gave birth to little old me.’

‘You sure he doesn’t know?’

‘Positively and absolutely. If he did, he’d die from shame, but not before doing something noble and stupid. He’s a King Lear in the making. All he needs is a bastard daughter to make him go nuts.’

‘Doubt that would happen.’

‘Mother said she wanted a child, not a husband, and he had to be worthy of someone as wonderful as her, and the child they created.’

‘Why’d she decide to tell you now?’

Ava chuckled. ‘I asked her that very thing and she simply said the time had come.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Unlike my father, my mother is a woman of few words.’

‘You’ll still call him Uncle George?’

‘You bet. But the next time I hug him, it’ll mean so much more.’

We turned and   kept   walking.   Trucks   roared past, filled with Confederate soldiers, their faces grim, going who knows where. I had the sudden image of America as a sleeping giant, like Ava had been, and both being awakened from their dreams to a new awareness, where nothing would ever be the same again.

The issue is quite clear. It is between light and darkness and every one must choose his side.

- G.K. Chesterton

T
he dream was always the same.

Estelle and Baby Eddie huddled and helpless in the middle of the street while traffic zooms past them on either side. I try to save them but my feet won’t move. Then a white flash, so brilliant that everything is a reversed black-and-white photograph and the air sizzles and crackles with heat and I can’t breathe, can’t move --

I awakened to the sounds of shouting and the ‘POP-POP-POP’ of small arms fire. My dream was gone, I could breathe again, but the gunfire continued. Where the hell was I? Lisbon? Buenos Aires? Key West? Different places clicked through my half-asleep brain like fruits in a slot machine as I groped in the darkness for the flashlight beneath my pillow where I always kept it and switched it on just as Orlando burst into the room, his face set and determined, the Thompson submachine gun in his hands all too real.

‘Visitors,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Doesn’t matter. They’re shooting up the place.’

I dressed as fast as I could. Orlando ran out, only to return seconds later with another submachine gun.

‘Where the hell did you get that?’

‘Off one of ours.’

‘Jesus.’

‘May he protect us and forgive us for what we are about to do.’

Head down, half-crouched, we made our way down to the first floor of the barracks, now empty of soldiers, long gone to defend Couba Island. Their tangled bedclothes and overturned cots mute proof of the attacker’s complete surprise.

A sharp explosion somewhere to the right. Hand grenade maybe. Then rapid machine gun fire. Shouts.

Then I knew. ‘They’re going after the plane.’ ‘But how did they-’

I didn’t hear the rest of O’s sentence because I took off at a dead run, zigzagging  as  best  I  could through the  ‘ping’ and  ‘zing’ of  ricocheting bullets clanging off trucks and metal buildings. Two trucks and a jeep were burning, their flames lighting my way to the Longstreet mansion, which by now was fully lit, front door open, and people running in and out. Where were Ava and her mother? I began angling off to the right, just as Orlando caught up with me and shoved me hard in the opposite direction.

‘Head for the plane....I’ll let you know.’

He ran toward the mansion, his menacing shadow soon swallowed up in other shadows laced with flashes of light. Only a few hours ago I had been  sitting  in  the  dining  room  with  Ava,  Patton,  Ziggy  and  Mrs. Longstreet, enjoying a friendly meal, while trying to see if Ava resembled the general. I had decided, to her advantage, that she did not. Now I was running like crazy, my shoes untied, with a Tommy gun in my hands.

Off to my right a group of men approached in a half-crouch. I ducked behind a tree because their helmets gave them away. They weren’t the familiar Wehrmacht iron pots. These were more rounded and had a thick ridge of cushioning around the circumference.

I’d read some Nazi propaganda in a magazine - probably
Popular Mechanics
– about the German navy’s elite waterborne commando units called
Kampfschwimmers
. These had to be the same guys, but in the flesh, not in a magazine, and firing real bullets.

The black-uniformed figures jogged past without making a sound. I waited a few seconds, and then took off in the opposite direction for the
Dixie Clipper
.

The dock was remarkably calm by comparison. Not a soul in sight, at least at first. But when I started cutting the ropes that held the camouflage netting, a figure staggered out of the darkness, his voice a muffled blur.

‘Lemme’ help, kid.’

Captain Fatt’s right side was covered with blood. He made it as far as the boarding ramp before I caught up to him and lowered him to the ground.

‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,’ he said.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Landed on the south shore, made their way into the camp. Nobody saw them coming. So much for our lookouts. They shot-’

A groan stopped him from talking. I scrabbled in the darkness to see if I could find the wound. No such luck. Just blood-soaked cloth. I smoothed back his hair like he was a little boy. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, his mouth opened in a frozen grimace of pain.

More gunfire, closer this time. The horizon lit up from a tremendous explosion, and then darkness. The noise stirred Fatt from his stupor and he shouted, ‘Kid, get the plane out of here.’

‘Where’s our crew?’

‘Damned if I know. I ordered them down here, the professor too, then I got nailed. Look, if you don’t, then-’ He arched back as a wave of pain swept over him. I eased him down onto the ground, pulled off one of his shoes and used it as a pillow to cradle his head.

‘Rest easy, sir. You’ll be okay.’

‘To hell with me. You got your orders. Now go.’

I sat back on my heels for a second. The
Dixie Clipper
loomed over me like a massive silver angel. But she would soon be a shot-up one if I didn’t get her out of danger.  Asking one man to fly a plane this size was impossible. Even so, I had to start down that path and see how far I could get. At least I could fire up her engines and taxi her out onto the lake. But what if they came after me?

I’d cross that bridge when I came to it - if I ever got that far.

My flashlight guided me through the clipper’s silent, darkened interior. The strong smell of gas told me they had been fueling her for our morning mission. Where the hell had everybody gone, damn it? Out to defend the perimeter, probably. That was my only guess.

I tripped over a coil of rope someone had left in the stripped-down main lounge and staggered into the second compartment, more wary this time, not wanting to break my leg before I even got started. I raced up the spiral staircase and swung the door upward into the pitch black flight deck.

I hit the battery switches on the electrical panel and the gauges flickered once, and then glowed softly. Then I raced to the left-hand seat. Had to get the generators going. Funny to be sitting alone in such a huge plane trying to make it work. Like a kid would feel; overwhelmed by the immensity of it all. But I was no kid and my fingers swiftly found the buttons and switches and  dials  and  controls  and  within  seconds,  number  two  engine  slowly turned, and then coughed blue-grey smoke and spun into life with a roar.

Number three engine followed suit. I adjusted the propeller pitch and opened the cowl flaps to keep them running as cool as possible. I had enough power to taxi the plane to safety. All I had to do was figure out how to cast her off without any help at all.

Seconds later - or so it seemed - I stood in the cramped bow compartment and opened the side hatch leading to the dock. I hopped out, untied the manila lines holding her fast until only the bow spring line was left. The pull of the engines was not too strong because of the propeller pitch, but even so I felt nervous standing out here while she was alive and straining at the leash with no one in the driver’s seat.

Captain Fatt had somehow managed to raise himself up on an elbow and was pointed at something and shouting, but the engine noise drowned out his voice. A group of people coming toward me. Thank God, the crew at last. But it was only Ava and Ziggy, followed by Orlando and Professor Friedman,  who  had  his  arm  around  a  staggering  Mason,  guiding  him forward. Great. I had passengers, but no crew. Mason wasn’t near enough to make this work. Fatt couldn’t move. Now what?

The answer came with a sharp explosion, followed by someone shouting something in German, and the far end of the dock suddenly swarmed with soldiers making their way towards us.

I grabbed Ava and shoved her onto the sponson and into the open hatch. I turned to Orlando.

‘Man the port fifty-caliber. See if you can train it back on the dock.’

Give me covering fire.’

‘On my way.’

Mason was next. ‘You and the professor get inside. Can you work your station?’

‘Hell yes.’

‘Then start the other two engines. Watch your cylinder head temps.’

‘Aye, aye.’

I grabbed Ziggy by the shoulder and goose-stepped him toward the bow. ‘Get inside and stand by to cast off that bow line. Can you do that?’

‘D...damn right I can,’ he said. ‘What’s ‘cast off’ mean?’

‘Untie the rope when I say so.’

‘Got it.’

Answering fire from the tree line slowed the commando’s advance to a crawl. But they wanted the clipper and nothing was going to stop them, and they’d kill Fatt if I left him lying on the dock, and I would be good God damned if I would let that happen. The splinters jabbed my hands as I slithered across to him. But before I even got there I knew he was already dead, his arms crossed over his chest, his head turned in the direction of the
Dixie Clipper
. His last sight on earth had been that big silver bird he loved. And I had loved him.

‘Rest in peace, cap.’

Number two engine spluttered into life with a smoky roar. Darting shadows off to my right along the line of service shacks. Commandos coming fast. A muzzle flash and the deck around me splintered into pieces from enemy fire. I rolled over into a crouch just as the thundering crack of the
Dixie Clipper’s
waist gun opened up over my head, its tracers arcing in the night air like molten globs of red.

Orlando had deflected the gun enough to give me covering fire and I took it, making it to the sponson, getting on board, securing the door and scrambling up to the flight deck where Mason at the engineer’s station fussed with his controls like a pipe organist.

‘Great job!’ I pounded his back, and then turned to see a Friedman sitting at Captain Fatt’s command table in the back, holding the chair handles in a death grip.

‘Hang on professor, we’ll get you out of here in one piece.’

I hurried past him to the left seat.

‘Welcome aboard,’ Ava said from the co-pilot’s seat.

She laughed at the shocked look on my face. ‘You don’t expect to fly this tub of bolts by yourself, do you?’

‘Got to try.’

‘I’m multi-engine rated, remember?’

‘But this is a Boeing clipper.’