By the Blood of Heroes (19 page)
IN THE WILD BLUE YONDER
G
raves gave them all a thirty-second crash course on how to operate the funny-looking devices. While they appeared rather complex at first glance, their use actually turned out to be quite simple.
The MPPGD was essentially just a big coat with metal wings. At this height the air was too thin to provide enough lift, so they would free-fall for several seconds before deploying the wings. To do so against the force of the air through which they were falling, they needed a sudden sharp burst of energy. That’s where the second part of the device came into play. The glasslike tiles sewn into the sleeves of the coats were designed to pull electrical current out of the air as it rushed over them. When a strong enough charge had been built up, the globe attached to the belt running across the center of the chest would glow an electric blue, indicating it was safe to activate the wings. At that point the operator was supposed to slap the globe with the flat of his hand, releasing the charge into the electrical conduits running through the frame to the control box in the center of the backpack. This in turn would open the wings with a snap, and the resulting lift caused by the air rushing over the flat surface of the wings would allow the operator to glide for great distances.
When the wings extended, two control arms would drop down in front of the pilot. To maneuver, all the pilot had to do was pull down on one control arm or the other, depending on which direction he wanted to go. Landing was achieved by pushing forward on both arms at the same time; this would raise the nose of the glider and spill the air out from beneath the wing, stalling it.
There was just one critical command to remember.
“Don’t hit the charge release too early,” Graves cautioned. “If you do, you’ll waste the energy buildup and the capacitors will need to charge themselves all over again. Depending on how close you are to the ground, you might have time to complete the recharging process before you strike the ground at terminal velocity and become part of the local terrain. Then again, you might not.”
Burke stepped in at that point and addressed the men. “I’ll be going first, so keep your eyes on me and make sure you don’t trigger your wings before the man in front of you. If something goes wrong, don’t panic, just wait for the charge to build up and try again.”
And pray,
he thought to himself.
“I want you all to watch the wings of the man in front of you and try to head in the same direction he’s going. Once on the ground, we’ll regroup and get ourselves organized before heading out. If you get separated from the group, don’t waste time searching for us, just head to the rendezvous point and we’ll meet there. Questions?”
Thankfully, there weren’t any. Burke didn’t know if he could have answered them if there were. Jumping out of the airship while wearing an experimental flying device wasn’t high on his list of things to do in this lifetime, and he had to work hard to keep that from showing on his face. The doubt he saw on some of the other men’s faces told him they were thinking the same thing.
They were soldiers, though, and he expected them to do exactly what soldiers had been doing since the invention of warfare—follow orders.
Wilson’s crew worked diligently to get them all strapped into their rigs, double-checking the harness buckles and safety belts. The airmen also spent some time rigging the extra crates of equipment and supplies into something called a parachute. Burke had never heard of such a thing, but when they were explained to him, he wondered why they weren’t using those instead of the MPPGD. There would be less of a chance for a mechanical malfunction to occur if they were using equipment with no moving parts. Or at least it seemed that way to Burke.
Apparently, he wasn’t thinking of the bigger picture.
“Your rate of descent will be several times faster by using the MPPGD,” the professor explained. “That will take you through the lightning storm quicker and make you less of a target for any enemy aircraft that might still be lingering about.”
Graves seemed insulted that Burke would even consider a different method after having the MPPGD explained to him. “If you prefer the parachute, I’m sure the chief can get you one,” he said, and a bit snidely at that.
Burke shook his head. He didn’t care about offending Graves, but it was the thought of hanging there, unable to do anything but wait to get struck by lightning, that turned the tide in favor of the glider gizmos. The faster he was able to get his feet on solid ground, the happier he would be.
When they were ready, the squad assembled near the cargo hatch they’d used to enter the ship.
Burke’s on-the-spot decision to go first had been motivated by his desire to lead by example. He didn’t believe in asking his men to do anything that he wasn’t willing and ready to do himself, a principle that became particularly important in situations like this. He knew from past experience that leading in this way would make it easier for the men to step up later if the need arose. Once that decision had been made, it also made sense to leave Sergeant Moore and the professor to bring up the rear; the professor could answer any equipment-related questions that might arise from the rest of the team and Charlie could make sure the others listened when the professor spoke.
When Burke was ready, Chief Wilson ordered the cargo bay doors to be opened and then escorted Burke over to the drop position. Behind them, the rest of the team was lining up, getting ready for their respective turn in the shoot.
“We’re going to be leaving a ten-second window between jumpers,” Wilson told him. “That will keep anyone from accidentally jumping too close to the man ahead while also limiting the size of the area your team will be spread across when you reach the ground.”
Burke nodded to show he understood as he fought to calm his pounding heart. Just a few hours before, he’d done everything he could to keep from taking a swan dive off the ship and now here he was getting ready to voluntarily do the very thing he’d fought so hard to prevent. The irony of his situation was not lost on him.
With a clank that startled him, the bay doors in the floor in front of him began to slowly draw apart, revealing the thick thunderclouds through which the airship was rapidly descending. The wind howled, buffeting Burke where he stood just a foot away from the opening and making it difficult to hear. Lightning flashed, lighting up the clouds, and Burke began having second thoughts.
“Steady on, mate,” Wilson shouted while clamping a reassuring hand onto his shoulder. “Once you get through the cloud cover, everything will be much better. Just keep your head on your shoulders and you should be fine.”
Right.
A thought suddenly occurred to him.
“What about you?” Burke shouted. “How are you going to get off the ship before she goes down?”
Wilson eyeballed the MPPGD one last time and then leaned in close so he wouldn’t have to shout over the sound of the wind.
“We’re not,” he told him. “Captain’s decided we’ll ride it out and hope for the best, see if anything’s salvageable once we’re on the ground.”
At Burke’s look of disbelief, Wilson said, “Don’t worry. She’s a hardy gal. We should make it down all right. If you ever make it to Liverpool after the war, look me up. I owe you a beer after that cock-up earlier today.”
If the
Victorious
was in so much danger that Burke and his men were being forced to abandon ship, it didn’t seem likely the captain would be able to get her on the ground intact. Still, Burke agreed he’d do so and shook the man’s hand. There really wasn’t anything else to say.
Good-byes over, he faced forward, took a deep breath, and then calmly stepped off into space.
FREE FALL
B
urke fell.
He dropped away from the
Victorious
with his heart in his throat, suddenly terrified that Graves’s device wouldn’t work and he would end up crashing down to earth, a modern-day Icarus with wings of brass and iron replacing those of feathers and wax.
The wind howled in his ears and it was hard to breathe, both because of the thinness of the air and the fact that it seemed like a living thing, cramming itself up his nostrils and down his throat, filling the space whether he wanted it to or not.
After a few seconds, the sensation of falling diminished, replaced instead by the sensation of being buoyed up by the very air through which he sped. It was an oddly curious sensation, one that was heightened by the thick cloud cover that he was descending through.
Unable to see much of anything but the air a few feet in front of him, he focused instead on the small squares of glasslike material sewn into the arms of his jacket. Nothing was happening. They looked the same as they had the moment he’d jumped out of the airship.
Then, little by little, the squares began to glow deep down in their centers, as they sucked the electrical charge out of the air as it whistled over his body. Burke stretched his arms out ahead of him, trying to expose as many of the squares to the passage of the wind as possible, praying that all Graves’s calculations had been correct.
If they were not, and the charging device failed as a result, it was going to be a long way down.
As the squares collected power, brilliant blue sparks of electrical current began to jump between them. The glow grew brighter, the sparks moved faster, and just when he began to worry about having all that electrical current dancing around so close to his skin, the activation light in the center of his harness sprang to life. He didn’t hesitate, just smashed the button with his right hand and braced himself for the wings to open.
Nothing happened.
You have got to be shitting me.
Telling himself not to panic, a decidedly uneasy task when he felt like he was falling through the air with all the artfulness of a brick, he looked down at the round switch and saw that it was still glowing bright blue. Apparently, he hadn’t dissipated the charge with his failed attempt to activate the wings, so he tried again. This time he held the button down, praying it just needed more time to send the necessary signal.
With a snap loud enough to be heard over the wind rushing in his face, the layers of metal jutting out from the pack on his back extended, spreading open like an oriental fan. It caught the air currents with nary an effort, and Burke went from falling through the sky like a dropped stone to swooping over the countryside with grace, riding the wind the way a surfer rides the crest of a wave.
He did as Graves instructed, pulling down on one side of the harness. That caused the wing to dip slightly, which in turn put him into a long, gentle spiral that was designed to carry him the rest of the way to the ground without mishap. He made a couple of turns, and then suddenly the earth spread out before him like a giant patchwork quilt as the cloud cover broke for a moment, letting him catch a glimpse of his destination far below.
That view was all it took. In that moment all of Burke’s fear evaporated and in its place rose such a feeling of wonder and amazement the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since he was a young boy. Aircraft hadn’t even been invented when he was a boy and now here he was, gliding through the air with the greatest of ease, a mechanical angel adrift in the heavens.
He was flying! Really flying!
He laughed aloud at the wonder of it all.
Unfortunately, his joy didn’t last long.
The
Victorious
hove into view several hundred yards away, her bow pointed earthward as she plunged past on what could only be her final flight. Burke could see that the airship’s tail section was ablaze, the fire eating away at her glistening skin and revealing the blackened steel of her frame, and he was amazed that she hadn’t already exploded. Even in her current condition she was fighting to stay aloft, but that one look was all it took for Burke to know that this was a battle she would not, could not, win. The pride of the British air fleet was going down and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
While the sight of the dying airship was certainly enough to dampen one’s spirits, it was the glimpse of the enemy aircraft following in the
Victorious
’s wake, the black crosses standing out sharply against the red paint of its wings, that was even more sobering. Unarmed as they were, Burke and his men would be sitting ducks if the pilot chose to come after them. He had no idea if the enemy had witnessed their evacuation of the airship, but he couldn’t afford not to take the possibility into account and was therefore forced to act as if they
had
been spotted.
They had to get down while they still had the chance!
Burke pointed the nose of the glider earthward and increased the angle of attack between the edge of the glider’s wing and the air passing over it, tightening the circumference of the circle he was following while increasing his rate of descent. He kept his eyes peeled for the enemy aircraft, expecting it to come charging out of the clouds at any minute, machine guns firing, and he didn’t take his eyes off the horizon around him until he drew so close to the earth that he had no choice but to pay attention to the landing ahead of him.
As he drew closer, he began to make out the details of the terrain below and was not encouraged by what he saw. The rolling green grassland he’d been hoping for was nowhere in sight; in its place was the war-torn, crater-filled wasteland. He could see old trench lines and fortifications strewn willy-nilly across the area, and in more than one place the seemingly endless spring rains had flooded a section until it looked like a small lake. He steered for the flattest section he could see and hoped for the best.
He couldn’t do anything else.
The ground was coming up quickly now, and he mentally reviewed the landing sequence Graves had taught them, knowing he had only one chance to get it right. So far they’d been lucky but that could all change in an instant, and a broken ankle would be just the kind of thing that would send their carefully made plans into the shitter and compromise the mission overall.
Closer . . . closer . . .
He shifted his weight and brought his legs up in front of him, flaring the nose of the glider upward and using the wing on his back as a primitive braking device, praying he wouldn’t overdo it and end up flipping over.
Closer . . .
He hit the ground with both feet churning and kept running forward, not wanting the weight of the glider to come down on top of him, especially at the speed he was moving. For a second the glider stayed horizontal to the ground, then gravity took over and began to pull it the final few feet earthward. By that point Burke was ready for it, however, and he tipped the wings on their side and let it slide across the earth until it hit a rock and brought him up short, panting from the exertion.
He stood there with his hands on his knees and his body leaning toward the wing of the glider, pulled by the harness he still wore, and took a moment to catch his breath.
Once he had, he unbuckled the straps, slipped out of the jacket, and stepped away from the MPPGD. He looked skyward and was relieved to see the other gliders on their way down; he hadn’t realized how concerned he’d been about being trapped behind enemy lines alone until he saw them descending toward him. He could also see, higher above the gliders, the twin parachutes that held his supply cache.
So far, so good.
Burke watched the first two men in his squad come in for a landing—neither of them would have won any points for style but they ended up on the ground uninjured—and then he turned his attention back to the MPPGD.
They couldn’t afford to leave the devices where they might be discovered by the enemy, so the decision had been made to bury them at the landing site. Burke pressed a trigger on the rear of the device and watched in satisfaction as the wing folded back in on itself, reducing its size by at least half. After that it was simply a matter of pulling out his entrenching tool and getting to work.
When he was finished with his efforts, he moved on to help the next nearest member of his team. In this fashion they quickly completed the work, until they were all gathered together around the professor’s glider.
That’s when Jones asked the question of the day.
“Where the hell is Strauss?”