Chapter 2

Saint-Nazaire. November 1942

What do ten men sound like when they’re burning? Nothing, unless you listen in on the group radio. That’s when you hear it, etched into their yells and cries. Terror.

L ieutenant John ‘Mac’ Mackenzie glanced at the B-17 Flying Fortress on his port side. That had been Bill’s slot a couple of weeks ago, with Bill waving a thumbs up from the co-pilot’s window. Seconds later, flames had leapt from the engines, danced across the wings, licked the cockpit, and engulfed the fuselage. A whole Fort powdered. Their luck ran out when that Focke-Wulf sneaked in from out of the sun’s glare, rolled over, and came in head-on, gun ports blinking silver flashes. Then, in an instant, a bright glow and a bloody wound opened as chunks of flaming, twisted metal and tears of flame fell from the sky along with men blown to bits, caught in the slipstream.

Bill had lost his cross and chain that morning before take-off. Mac’s gloved fingers reached for the St. Christopher around his neck. There . He sucked in a breath, exhaling slowly into his mask. The muffled, thunderous roar of the four Cyclone engines cut in, the background thrum of four propellers spinning, constant and reassuring. He glanced again at the B-17 on his left. A rookie crew had that slot today. He didn’t know their names. It was better that way.

They had taken off from Bassingbourn at dawn, soaring into a veil of cumulus. Mist draped across the English Channel, but above the cloud at twenty thousand feet, the blood-orange sun peeked over the horizon, bleeding hues of amber into a cornflower sky. Sure is beautiful , Mac thought. As they approached the French coast at Longues-sur-Mer, the blue void gave way to brown-black puffs of smoke, which hung in the air like shrouds. He pulled the oxygen mask off his face for a few seconds and embraced the rush of the cockpit’s icy chill over his nose and mouth. He wondered if he’d ever adjust to the stench of rubber as he wiped beads of sweat from his brow. The mission, their tenth, bombing the U-boat pens at Saint-Nazaire, was hotting up fast. ‘Looks like they’re throwing everything they’ve got at us today.’ Mac glanced at his co-pilot, Dennis Wilson.

‘Can’t see a darn thing down there. It’s all closed in,’ Wilson said as he gazed out the side window.

A flash of red caught Mac’s eye, and their B-17, the Texas Rose , shook as a hail of flak peppered the fuselage. That was just the warm-up. They’d get the full greeting soon enough. He wrestled with the control wheel as he struggled to stay in formation, keeping his eyes focused on the bomber in front. He rapidly sucked in oxygen, and his pulse pounded as the Texas Rose bobbed around like a sailboat on a rough sea, but he held her tight, maintaining their place in the formation. ‘Pilot to crew. Keep sharp out there and remember to check your masks for ice. Spit freezes.’ Anoxia was a silent killer, and up here at twenty-seven thousand feet, oxygen was the crew’s lifeline.

As they neared Saint-Nazaire, the brown-black puffs sprang up once more.

‘Pilot to navigator. How long to the IP?’ Mac pictured William Stewart, hunched over his desk down in the nose behind the bombardier, plotting their course.

‘Navigator to pilot. Bomb run in five minutes.’

‘Bogey, nine o’clock!’ Bud, the waist gunner, yelled into the interphone.

The staccato sound of machine-gun fire from Tex, the flight engineer in the top turret, drilled through the cockpit. The flash of a black swastika flicked past their port side, and Mac’s stomach lurched as the Messerschmitt scythed through the group.

‘Tail, you got him?’ Bud’s voice crackled through the interphone, high-pitched and edged with excitement.

‘I got him.’ Birdie’s smooth, laid-back tone.

More machine-gun fire arced across the sky, and with a flash of yellow and silver-grey, the Messerschmitt peeled away swift as a minnow, diving through the formation. As they approached the target, a blend of hazy yellow, brown, and black smoke stretched out across the sky. Anti-aircraft shells exploded all around, some of them mighty close, with bursts of glowing orange. Red flak.

‘Here comes the coffin run.’ Wilson eased back on the throttles as they approached the bomb run, and the engines slowed in response. ‘Flak bursts ahead, heavy.’

‘Yeah, it’s flak city all right.’ Mac gripped the control wheel. The rookie pilot on his port side drifted a little too close for comfort, bobbing erratically, probably riding through prop wash. ‘Get on the ball, rookie. You’ve got to stay in there,’ Mac muttered under his breath. He gestured to the co-pilot, who peered back at him, and received a thumbs up in return. Within a minute, the rookies had hauled their Fortress back into line and Mac puffed out a breath of relief.

‘Bombardier to pilot. Bomb bay doors open,’ Danny drawled.

Mac switched on the autopilot. ‘She’s all yours, Danny.’ Five minutes of flying straight and slow to the target. Easy meat. But as Mac leaned back slightly, flexing his gloved fingers, he noticed a flash of red from the side of the Texas Rose . From the cockpit, he had a bird’s-eye view as one of the B-17s in formation juddered and bucked as flak rained down. He crossed his chest.

‘They got one.’ Bud’s voice. ‘Come on guys, jump.’

As the stricken ship spiralled towards the ground, Mac glimpsed white silk billowing between shrouds of black. He waited, breath paused, craning his neck to see as one chute after another blossomed into uncertainty. ‘Six,’ he murmured. He didn’t have time to dwell, as there was a sudden flash followed by the sound of hailstones peppering the Texas Rose .

‘What the heck was that?’ Beside him, Wilson spun around, looking frantically at the instruments on the control panel.

Mac glanced at the wings. Both intact, all four props spinning, not smoking. He peered at the formation below, and the breath caught in his throat.

‘A fighter just flew into Jackson’s ship. It’s a goddamn fireball!’ Wilson stared, eyes wide with shock.

Mac shook his head as he glanced at the space where Jackson’s B-17 had been; flaming chunks of aircraft and debris fell from the sky. Men plummeted towards the ground, limbs flailing as they tumbled. His stomach tightened, and his breaths became rapid and shallow as the dead weight of his flak suit bore down on his shoulders. He rubbed the back of his neck.

‘They weren’t wearing chutes.’ Wilson shook his head, and his eyes glazed over.

‘Pilot to crew. Make sure you’ve got your chutes on.’ Jeez. There was nothing they could do for them, and he had to block it out. As the group tightened up, Mac kept a close watch as Hutchinson sidled his B-17 across to fill the gap below. ‘The Colonel always said, keep ’em tucked in tight, and you’ll come home,’ Mac muttered. The rookie co-pilot on his left put his hand up, and Mac gestured with a nod. They were doing all right so far.

‘Here they come again!’ Tex bellowed into the interphone. ‘Fighter, six o’clock!’

The guns opened up, and short bursts of machine-gun fire hailed from all around the ship. The pungent waft of burned cordite drifted into the cockpit as the Texas Rose trembled from the recoil of the machine guns.

A flash of silver-grey and a swastika streaked by Mac’s window, slipping beneath the belly of the ship in front. As the Texas Rose flew on, flak pounded her aluminium body. A few pieces pierced her skin, and from inside, it sounded like a hail of spanners was showering the ship. She lurched, the right wing bucked, and black smoke belched from an engine. Christ, what now? ‘Number three’s smoking.’ Mac checked the engine dials. ‘Cut the fuel. Feather the prop. Shut it down,’ he ordered.

Wilson pulled the mixture lever back and hit the fire extinguisher button.

‘Pilot to crew. Check in.’ The fighters had fled, but reinforcements would be buzzing around them soon enough, and maybe they’d be the prime target. Mac’s heart pounded in his chest as he suddenly longed for home.

‘Radio operator checking in,’ Virg said over the interphone. ‘Are we on fire?’

‘No, we’re not on fire.’ Mac gritted his teeth.

‘Tail gunner checking in. Smoke means fire. I can’t see what’s happening back here.’

‘There’s no darn fire.’ Mac flicked a glance at Wilson. ‘What the hell’s going on back there?’

Angry voices filtered through the interphone, one of them Bud’s. Mac glanced out at the dead engine, the spinning disc of a prop now feathered into a still, upright Y, a trail of pencil-lead smoke streaming behind them. Swell. Might as well be towing a Stars and Stripes banner .

‘Christ! That almost took my head off.’ Bud’s voice.

‘It wouldn’t have made much difference if it had.’ Irv’s voice.

‘Say that again, and I’ll knock yours clean off!’

‘Pilot to waist. Quit messing around, boys. That’s an order. You know the rules for using the interphone.’

‘There’s a hole the size of a football in the waist, but nobody’s hurt,’ Bud said.

Mac tried to quell the irritation rising inside him. Fighting like kids when they ought to be pulling together. Through a break in the undercast, he glimpsed a streak of red eclipsed by billowing plumes of smoke, which shrouded the harbour town and obscured the mouth of the Loire River and the submarine base. The B-17s in the lead group had released their bombs over the target. The sight evoked memories of their last visit, two weeks ago. He’d flown in the high formation at a similar altitude, but the low formation flew in at ten thousand feet. Anti-aircraft gunners had a field day with those boys. Three flamers and twenty-three more had limped home on a wing and a prayer.

As they neared the target, the familiar tendrils of doubt began to gnaw at him, twisting and squeezing his gut. Most of the guys laughed it off once the bourbon got flowing. How did Carleton put it the other day? ‘Who gives a shit? They’re all Nazis anyway, so it’s a few less to worry about.’ But they’re people, women, and children , Mac thought.

‘Pilot to bombardier. How’s that target looking, Danny?’ Hunched over the Norden bombsight like a priest at an altar, Danny’s hand would be poised on the bomb release trigger, waiting. Mac sucked in a breath.

‘Almost there,’ Danny drawled. ‘Can’t see much through this smoke and cloud.’

Gripped by a familiar sickly feeling, Mac couldn’t shake the image of the people caught up amid this hell. He wasn’t releasing the bombs, but he was flying the ship, and somehow this war made less sense with every mission he flew. How the hell was he even alive? The clock was ticking louder than ever before.

‘I see it. Bombs gone.’ Danny’s words rang out. ‘Bomb bay doors closing. Pilot, she’s all yours.’

Mac felt the Texas Rose lift, free at last. He switched off the autopilot and applied more throttle to increase their speed. It was too early for relief, but he sensed it flowing through the ship like an undercurrent, easing the tension in his shoulders and the tightness in his chest. Teeth gritted in determination, he banked the Texas Rose in a sweeping turn out over the Atlantic Ocean and back around to the land. He flicked a glance at the water, where sunlight splintered on crested waves. As he pointed her nose towards the line of blue up ahead, a sudden flash on their port side caught his eye.

‘They got Smokin’ Sue ,’ Wilson yelled, his voice cracking with a mix of shock and disbelief.

Smokin’ Sue took another hit, and Mac watched as a large hole blossomed in the wing and flames erupted, lashing the airframe. She hovered for a moment, as if suspended in the air. Then, with a graceful, slow half-roll, she flipped onto her back and fell away towards the icy waters of the Atlantic. Mac forced himself to focus as his heart raced. With one engine down, the last thing they needed was to fall behind the group. Just hold on, please God , he prayed. In an instant, he pictured his father and heard his calm words. Keep her steady. You could fly her blindfolded . Mac gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly as he pictured England, his heart easing into a steady rhythm.

‘Jump. Come on, you guys, get outta there.’ Wilson crossed his chest, his eyes widened in horror. ‘Hell, why don’t they jump?’

There was no getting out of a tight spin like that. The centrifugal force pins you against the side. Mac gripped the control wheel tight, but in his mind, he pictured the base. Ten beds stripped, made ready for a new crew. He shook the thought away. There was no room for errors on the home run, and he steeled himself as they ploughed through the blue, slipping through all the lost souls.

As they headed north to the English Channel, a surge of adrenaline flooded his veins. ‘Pilot to crew. Keep an eye out for Jerry. He’s just waiting, so we’d better be ready.’ He gazed around at the B-17s that flecked the sky. An armada winging its way home to England, except for three lost ships and thirty men. His eyes flicked over the dials on the instrument panel. At least the oil pressure was holding. A lone aircraft was easy prey.

At twenty-one thousand feet, cumulus clouds dotted the sky and as they flew over Loudeac, more flak bounced up, but it was light and merely rocked them on their way. Mac cast his eye over the fuel gauges. Halfway home. So close.

Then, what began as a tiny, dark smudge on the horizon multiplied and swelled into several larger specks, darting across the void like a pack of wolves. ‘Here they come again.’ Mac stared, transfixed, as the wolves separated up ahead, veering off left and right. Flashes of yellow noses and black crosses on silver-grey. ‘Bandits, twelve o’clock high. Don’t fire until they’re in range.’ He clutched at breaths, and the reek of rubber clung to his throat and nostrils. They had to make it, and he was damned if he was going to fail. He focused and offered a silent prayer to God.

‘Man, the sky’s swarming with Krauts. I’m gonna get one if it kills me.’ Bud’s voice edged with determination.

‘Yeah? You keep telling yourself that,’ Irv said.

A pair of Messerschmitt Bf 109s targeted a Fortress head-on, peppering it with cannon fire before moving on to the Texas Rose . Above the thrum of the engines and machine-gun fire, a terror-filled scream howled in Mac’s ear.

‘Jesus, I’m hit!’

‘Waist to pilot, Bud’s hurt. Send someone back here with the medical kit.’ Irv paused. ‘Hang in there, buddy.’

‘Okay, Irv. Man your gun. Pilot to bombardier. Waist gunner’s hit. Get back there and help him.’

‘Tail to waist. Fighter, six o’clock, coming around.’

‘I got him, Birdie. Come on, closer, closer,’ Irv said in a sing-song voice.

Mac pictured him, poised with his gun, waiting for the precise moment before spitting orange tracer fire into the belly of the enemy. As the fighter soared past their starboard side, Mac watched as the skilled hunter turned and headed back, weaving in and out of the bombers behind them.

‘Bombardier to pilot.’

‘Go ahead, Danny.’

‘Bud’s hit in the leg, but he’s okay. He’s darn lucky it missed the artery. I’ve bandaged him up and given him a shot of morphine.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Danny.’ Mac heaved a sigh of relief. It could have been so much worse. He pictured Bud sprawled out there in the waist with his rosary in his hand, praying. He carried it on every mission. They all carried something they treasured. Some guys had several lucky charms from a favourite jumper to a teddy or their bible – armour-plated, of course – kept in their breast pocket just in case. He glanced across at the rookies. They were still doing okay. He blew out a breath.

The rhythmic staccato of machine-gun fire punctuated the constant roar of the engines, and gunners on the surrounding ships spat tracer fire across the sky at a pair of marauding Messerschmitts. The fighters soon peeled away, heading off into the blue. ‘I think the wolves are low on fuel, boys.’ Mac blew out a breath.

‘About time. Let’s hope that’s the last,’ Wilson said.

‘Waist to pilot.’ Irv’s voice.

‘Pilot here. How’s Bud doing?’

‘He’s okay. Are we gonna make it home?’

‘Just hang in there. We’ll make it.’ Home . Montana and the ranch in the summer. His mom at the stove making meatloaf, Pop outside, breaking in a colt beneath the amber sun. Mac felt the soothing warm rays on his cold skin. The sweet scent of the pine trees that stagnated in the still air and flowed with the prairie breeze, and the drift of the horse’s sweat after a long ride. Suddenly, a frantic cry cut in over the radio and wrenched him back to the present, and the sharp, icy chill returned with the stench of rubber, oil, and cordite.

‘It’s Last Orders , from the low formation,’ Virg said over the interphone.

The breathless words of the pilot from Last Orders crackled through the radio, high-pitched and frantic. ‘We gotta go down. Oxygen’s almost gone. My bombardier’s shot to hell. I don’t think he’s gonna make it.’

Mac felt a chill creep over him. From the cockpit, he looked on as Last Orders peeled away from the formation, heading down into occupied France. As the desperate voice screamed through the intercom, Mac’s stomach tightened. A bombardier was stretchered off a Fort last week, so shot up his lungs were hanging out. His heart had pumped the life right out of him by the time they landed, and his body was so slick with blood that the medics dropped him twice. Mac heaved in a breath and tried to block out the image. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his back, and his mouth and throat ran dry.

‘He’s still going on about his bombardier dying. What good’s that gonna do?’ Wilson cussed under his breath.

Mac’s heart hammered against his ribs, and the blood pounded in his ears. He trembled and fought to suppress the swell of nausea in his gut as Bill’s face reared in his mind—that final glimpse. His wild eyes had said it all as he paused for a second to look over at Mac, seconds before he became a fireball in the sky.

‘Wilson, take over for me.’ Mac reached for his canteen and gulped down the water. He rested his head back and screwed his eyes shut. He was tired. They all were. Exhaustion. It spread like a disease, seeping into the mind, then to your limbs and nerves, making every movement feel like you were wading through treacle.

He pictured the girl he’d met at the dance a few weeks ago. Slim with hair the colour of platinum. She’d refused to dance with him because she was with some other guy, but her moment’s hesitation and that flicker in her emerald-green eyes had instilled hope and soothed the dent in his pride. So, she’s loyal and beautiful . Those eyes bore depth and soul, and as he’d leaned in close to speak to her, a scent like sweet prairie flowers soared to meet him. A voice in his head whispered that beautiful girl was his guiding light, and he harnessed the memory.

The English Channel shimmered up ahead, and a weak smattering of flak sprang up without a hope as the bombers punched their way through the clouds. As they left the French coast behind, Mac gazed at the sheet-metal surface of lead-grey, icy water. His toes were almost numb, and he wriggled them in his fur-lined overboots.

They’d almost done it. Another mission down, fifteen to go. They were old hands, the old men of the 324 th Squadron. A well- oiled machine, so in tune with one another. ‘Pilot to crew. We’re at ten thousand feet. You can come off oxygen.’ It was a relief to tear the mask from his face, which was sore from where it chafed his skin, and he nudged his cheek with his gloved hand.

‘Hey, smell that sea air, boys,’ Danny said over the interphone.

‘Pilot to crew. We’re landing at Exeter to refuel.’ A chorus of groans erupted over the interphone. ‘It’s not all bad. We might get a cup of coffee.’

‘Pilot, with respect, Limeys don’t know how to make good coffee,’ Irv said. ‘But if it’s served up by a good-looking dame, then I’ll drink it and more besides.’ Laughter and whistles erupted filling the cockpit with a brief moment of levity.

Mac craved something stronger than coffee and was looking forward to the evening back at Bassingbourn. Drinks, cards, catch-up on the mail, but first, they had to go through debriefing with a slug of bourbon thrown in as a sweetener. A tiny black dot up ahead caught his eye, or was it a smudge on the windshield? A smudge that moved, divided, and grew into several larger specks. His heart quickened, but with a closing speed of over four hundred miles an hour, the specks merged into P-47 fighters within seconds, and he exhaled. ‘Look, boys. Our little friends have arrived.’ The mid-afternoon sun glinted on silver as the fighter aircraft zipped through the sky.

‘Gee, now that’s one beautiful sight.’ Wilson whistled.

‘More beautiful than any girl on her wedding day,’ Danny drawled.

With a greeting waggle of wings, the P-47s turned and escorted them back to England. Before long, the horizon surrendered the terracotta-sandstone cliffs of the Jurassic Coast. Beyond them, the English tapestry stretched taut across the undulating land, a ripple of greens and browns. Home.