B for Buster (21 page)

But the bomb aimer got up on his knees. I didn't know if he meant to stand up or only to kneel there. But the padre stepped forward and put his hand on Will's shoulder. And Will didn't push it away; he held on to it, and asked again, “Why?” Then his back bent in an arch, his shoulders sagging. His head bowed toward the earth. “You don't know,” he said quietly. “
Do
you? You just don't know.”

His hand stayed clutched to the padre's wrist, on the stretch of white skin below a gold-braided cuff. In that moment it looked as though they were locked in a struggle. The padre, stiff-armed, might have been pressing Will into the ground. “Are you frightened?” he asked.

Will shook his head. “That isn't it.”

“God bless you, son,” said the padre. He pulled his hand up, and Will's arm rose with it—as high as he could reach—before it dropped to the grass. The padre backed away a step or two, then turned around and walked off toward the next kite.

“Father!” shouted Buzz. “Help me look.”

“I can't,” the padre said. “I don't have time.” Already the first bombers were starting their engines. Puffs of white smoke were swirling up from the tangle of wings and tail fins. The air was shaking with the rumble of airscrews.

Ratty started searching for a clover, then Simon, then I. Will didn't move from his bit of grass; he didn't even rise from his knees. He held his helmet upside down, and stared at the picture inside.

Then Lofty and the old guy came around
Buster
's tail. Pop stood by the door. Lofty called to us: “Right, chaps. Let's go.”

“My clover!” said Buzz.

Lofty got down and looked—the old guy, too—and Sergeant Piper watched us crawl across the grass as though we'd lost our minds. Far to the west, toward the sun, the first kite taxied to the runway. Another came into line behind it.

“I've
got
to find one,” said Buzz. “Aw, Geez, I can't go without a clover.”

“All aboard!” shouted Sergeant Piper.

Lofty walked over to Buzz and tried to haul him to his feet. Pop had already given up, and then Simon did, too. “Don't worry,” he told Buzz. “She'll be apples tonight.” He shrugged at Lofty, and the two of them wandered over to the kite. They stood at the door, and Lofty said, “Buzz, we have to go.” Will shuffled over to stand with them there. I carried the pigeon box, and Percy on my shoulder, past Buzz and Ratty as they still ferreted back and forth.

The bombers passed in their thundering parade. “Buzz,” said Lofty again. “We can't wait anymore.”

“Another minute,” said Buzz. “I gotta find one.”

Ratty put his hand on Buzz's back. “Come on,” he said. “You can take my rabbit's foot. Okay?”

Buzz shook his head. “It won't help me.” He kept searching, frantic now.

Will climbed up through the door. Simon went behind him, then Lofty—ducking his head as he clambered through. Ratty was pulling at Buzz's collar, trying to get him up from the grass. Our engines started, one by one.

Buzz was nearly in tears when he gave up his search. He came running to the door, clumsy in his big boots. “Oh, Geez,” he said. “I'm scared.”

CHAPTER 23

WE THUNDERED OVER WHITBY and on across the sea, and the water was all aflame. High above it, with the sun behind us, we flew in a great battle fleet of Lancs and Hallibags. We could see them strewn for miles around us, on a sky of lurid colors.

I wished that Will had described it all with his poetry. He would have found just the right words to tell us how the sky looked as it changed from twilight to darkness, how the huge full moon came sailing up. But he was silent all the way; he never said a word.

I let Percy sit on my shoulder as we climbed toward the darkness. Our route took us over an airy mountain with a summit of eighteen thousand feet, so I thought he would feel a bit groggy as we crossed over Denmark. But for now he was happy to look out the window, and I felt his head turning from side to side as I listened on the wireless for a recall, for changes to the route and weather.

Silver moonlight flashed across the water. The engines throbbed as we climbed steadily to the east. Far in the distance I saw flickers of gunfire, little bursts of red tracer. I held on to Percy until we topped ten thousand feet, then tucked him inside my jacket.

A few minutes from the coast, Lofty told me to start throwing out the Window. I took Percy aft and plugged myself in by the flare chute. Someone sighted searchlights on our left; then Will broke his silence to say there were others to the south.

“Yes, I see them,” answered Lofty.

I couldn't see anything where I was. But Will painted it all with his words, the way the beams of light were swinging and crossing. I was glad to hear him, until I realized that what he was really describing was a Halifax being coned in the lights. He talked on in a flat and dreadful voice, as another beam—and another—fixed themselves on the straggling bomber. Then he told us how the flak was bursting close around it, how the Halifax seemed pinned in place against the sky. Suddenly he stopped, and it was just his breathing that I heard.

“Poor buggers,” said Lofty. His pipe started ticking.

We crossed narrow Denmark, and Will looked down at prickles of light. “They're sort of twinkling,” said Will. “Sort of bursting. Here and there. All over.” The whole country was ruled by the Nazis, but on the farms and in the villages blacked-out windows were being uncurtained, doors and shutters opened as the bombers flew overhead. From the middle of an empty field came flashes of a torch aimed toward us—three dots and a dash, three dots and a dash—V in Morse code, the symbol for victory. All across the dark land lights flickered on as we droned across it, our friends on the ground cheering us in secret. It was a brave thing, and a sad thing, and I wished that I could see it.

“Skipper. Turn coming up,” said Simon. “Steer one-five-four. Now.”

“Roger,” said Lofty, the kite already rolling to the right.

We started down toward Peenemünde.

There was no use for Window anymore; the Germans knew we were coming. I moved up toward the wireless, passing through the front office. With our turrets whining, our engines in a pleasant roar, we flew along below the moon and above the sea, in a brightness that was neither night nor day.

“A hunter's moon,” said Will.

I held on to Percy as I stepped down and buckled in at my place. “Don't worry,” I told him. “There's six hundred kites. They won't get
us.
”

The night fighters came into the stream before we reached the target. Sparks of gunfire shot from kite to kite. Then the searchlights wheeled toward us, and the flak opened up from the ships down below. It grew heavier and heavier, and we had never seen flak as bad as that.

“We're going to get the chop,” said Buzz.

“Shut up,” said Lofty.

“It's true,” he said. “I know it.”

I closed up my window. I didn't want Percy to see the beams of light, the tracers and the gunfire, the flames and the bomb bursts. I squeezed him against me as the crate was hurled up and then down. I put my hand into my jacket and rubbed his feathers. I felt his heart shuddering inside his little breast.

Our number three packed it in just as we dropped our bombs. The one that had quit before, the one that Lofty had fretted about, sputtered and stopped. Lofty shouted at Pop to close off the fuel. Then the flak hit us. It ripped through our metal skin in a hundred places. It knocked out the number one engine, puncturing the fuel tanks. It jammed the rear turret and set the wing on fire, and down we went in a howling dive. I lurched against my harnesses, then smashed against the fuselage. Everyone was screaming. Buzz, in a high voice, was shouting for his mother.

The airframe shook all over.
Buster
went into a spin that hurled me sideways and pinned me back in my seat.

“Pull up!” yelled Lofty. “Come on!”

We tumbled down in a circle of fire, corkscrewing down to the ground. I could see my parachute but couldn't reach it. I felt Percy struggling in my jacket.

“Come on. Come on!” cried Lofty.

In my window the earth went round and round. My ears ached and my arms were chunks of lead. But my head felt light and woozy, and I passed out for a moment. I dreamed that we were flying flat and level, cruising above puffy clouds lit by sparkling stars. Then I woke again to the spinning horror of the kite and shouting of the crew.

We came out of the dive at a thousand feet, roaring through the smoke of Peenemünde. Our own fire had blown itself out, but someone was crying in the intercom; someone else was babbling. It was Buzz, going on and on, “I told you so! I told you so!”

We headed home with two engines, with so many holes in the fuselage that I could see the stars right through
Buster'
s skin. Air blasted through the kite and froze me in my seat. It stank of petrol and cordite and scorched metal.

“What's the course?” someone asked. “What's the course for home?”

I shivered in my seat, suddenly colder than the air. It was the ghostly voice I'd heard so long ago. “What's the course for home?” it asked again.

I knew what the answer would be even before Simon spoke. Then he said, as I knew he would, “Steer two-one-niner.”

The kite shook as it turned.
Buster
rattled and shook as it came around to a course that it had always been meant to fly. It seemed as though my ghosts had taken control, and I was so cold and frightened and lonely that I wondered if I was even alive anymore. I might have got the chop in that blast of flak, or we might have spiraled into the ground, and now we were on our way to that terrible place where all the airmen went. Two-one-niner. Was that the course that Donny had steered? Was it the one that everyone had to fly?

But Lofty's voice came over the intercom then. Calm and strong, a little bit slurred by the pipe in his teeth, it calmed me in an instant.

“Sing out,” he said. “Will, are you there?”

“Yes, Skipper.”

“Simon?”

“Okay.”

He got an answer from everyone. We couldn't
all
be dead, I thought, not dead and talking, dead and flying. I tightened my hand around Percy.

“How much fuel have we got?” asked Lofty. Pop gave him a number, and I heard the pipe clicking in the skipper's teeth.

“It should be enough,” said the old guy.

We straggled home by ourselves, out of the stream and the sense of protection it gave us. The sky was clear and bright all the way to England. The sea was silver, the land a grayish mass of shapes and shadows. Then we crossed the hills with our fuel getting low. And we dropped into fog that
Buster
never came out of again.

I listened for bearings on the wireless, but couldn't even hear static in my headphones. I slammed at the box, then tore the covers off, and I saw the shattered tubes and knew the thing was useless.

We groped through the clouds, holding to our course, judging by our airspeed when we should find the runway. But it wasn't where it should have been. We flew five minutes farther, then circled around and circled again, like a pigeon trying to find its way. The fog turned yellow as dawn approached, a greasy, sickly color.

Pop said, “You've got fuel for twenty more minutes, Skipper.”

We widened the circle and went around again.

“Kak,” said Lofty. “Can you call the Darkies up?”

“No, Skipper.” There wasn't a chance of getting help. “The wireless is U/S.”

Pop said, “Fifteen minutes, Skipper.”

“Okay,” said Lofty. “Okay.”

His intercom clicked off, then on again. “Boys, get your chutes on,” he said.

I didn't see that we had any choice except to bail out. I took my chute from the rack, and waited.

“What about Ratty?” asked Buzz. “His turret's stuck.”

“Yeah, what about me?” said Ratty.

“Don't sweat,” said Lofty. “I'm staying. You guys get out, and I'll put the kite down somewhere. Me and Ratty.”

“And me,” said Buzz.

“Yeah, me too,” said Simon.

Pop and Will, they both said they'd stay with
Buster
. No one was bailing out. “I don't want to get my boots dirty,” said Will.

I didn't know what to do. It was a scary idea to step through the hatch and into the air. But I thought of the
White Knight
wrecked on the hillside, and I sure didn't want to stay.

Percy wasn't a problem. I had a paper bag to put him in; I had it for just that reason. Tucked inside, with its top crumpled down, he would fall away from the kite and out of the slipstream, then work his way free to fly on his own. I didn't have to worry about Percy.

“Pop, how's the fuel?” asked Lofty. “Kid, if you're going, you'd better go.”

It didn't matter to him what I did; it didn't matter to anyone. There was nothing shameful about bailing out of a doomed bomber. It was the proper thing to do, and everyone knew it.

“Skipper, ten more minutes,” said Pop.

“Okay. Kid, get outta here,” said Lofty.

My old man had used those same words. He had shouted them at me in one long slur, too many times for me to count. But Lofty said them in a different tone, wanting me to go only because it was safer. I hadn't thought of my dad in ages, but suddenly I saw him clear as anything, as though his armchair was right in front of me and he was in it, trying to focus his drunken eyes. I wondered what he would say if he
had been
sitting there, what he would think to see me scared and uncertain. I knew right away; he'd be pleased. His red face would laugh, his blurry eyes glowing with the pleasure of finding he'd always been right. That I was good for nothing. That I cared for no one but myself. That even shadows scared me.

I lifted my parachute. The buckles tapped against the ones on my harness. I hoisted it up and put it on the rack. “I'm staying,” I said. “We'll stick together.”

“Jolly dee,” said Lofty.

I opened my jacket and let Percy come out. He hopped to my shoulder, up to the window. The fog seemed liquid-thick, flowing round the wingtip, churning through the airscrews.

“Flaps down ten,” said Lofty. “Landing gear down. Field or forest, here we come.”

I unfastened one side of my mask. “Where are we?” I whispered to Percy. “Where's the airfield? Where's home?”

He snapped to attention.

He stiffened; his head came up. His pink feet tightened on my jacket, and the chevrons rippled across his wings as he drew his feathers tight. His eyes staring around with their halos of stars.

He knew where we were. He knew how to get home. I peered into the splash of his eye-sign and tried to learn what he knew. But he only blinked at me, then pecked my lips.

“We're almost on the deck,” said Lofty. “You see anything, Will?”

“No, Skipper.”

“Full flaps. Everybody buckle up.”

I wanted Percy to be inside my jacket. The lining, I thought, would keep him padded if we pranged. But when I reached for him, he hopped away. And again he stood at attention. “What's the matter?” I asked. And then I knew. I fumbled for my intercom button. I shouted, “Wait! We can still get back.”

“How?” asked Lofty.

“Percy can save us.”

I thought someone would laugh, but the intercom was silent. “If we let him go, he'll fly straight to the loft,” I said.

“Yeah, and then what?” asked Lofty. “How's that going to help?”

“We'll get there with him,” I said. “You'll follow him home.”

The fog flowed past; the engines droned. I hoped everyone was thinking of the day over Scotland, our first flight in
Buster,
when Lofty had flown the old crate more slowly than any of us had believed was possible.

“Can you do it?” asked Will. “Can you follow a bird?”

Lofty's pipe clicked on his teeth. “How fast does he go, Kid?”

“Seventy miles an hour,” I said. “Maybe more.”

“You're nuts,” said Lofty after a moment. “Kak, you've lost your mind.” And then the old guy said, “I think it's worth a try.”

“You too?” asked Lofty. Then, “Oh, hell. Why not?” He opened the doors to the bomb bays, to slow us down as much as he could. Simon set to work opening the hatch in the floor. I took my paper bag and snapped it open. I put Percy inside, folded the top, and unbuckled myself from my harness.

“Kid,” said Lofty. “When you let him out, come and help me. Everyone else, watch for the bird.”

I crouched over the hatch with Simon, and he hauled it up and let it clatter onto the deck. I looked through the hole, down at a solid mass of clouds rushing past. The wind whistled up through the floor, tugging at my clothes. With her nose up, shaking as though from fright, old
Buster
flew on. Her two engines raced to keep us in the air.

“Eighty-five knots,” said Lofty.

“Don't stall her!” cried Pop.

“Eighty knots. Okay, Kid. Let him go.”

I dropped the bag. I thought I'd be able to watch it fall straight into the clouds and see Percy flutter loose. But the instant it left my hand, the bag vanished below the kite, snatched away by the slipstream. I got up so suddenly that I put my leg through the hatch, and fell into the hole. My elbow hit the fuselage, and I jammed up against the metal with the clouds racing past my feet. Simon caught me. He pulled me up, and I staggered to the cockpit. I plugged in beside Lofty.