Unpunished Read online

  “You should have let me get the gear down, Captain,” Morris said softly, fighting back tears as the crew milled around without purpose at a safe distance from the blaze. He could not recall another time he wanted to strike someone so badly. But he did not dare.

  Tony Moscone wandered around the crash site perimeter, still like a dazed child, his physical wounds anything but life-threatening—but his mental wounds life-altering.

  Pilcher, with all the arrogance of one who refused to admit mistakes, offered this rationalization: “See? If we hadn’t dumped the bombs and ammo, it would be cooking off like crazy right now. And look around…we’re in good company.” His arm made a grand, sweeping gesture.

  A dozen American bombers—B-17s and B-24s—were parked on the airfield’s periphery, their guns removed, their insignia painted over. Three British bombers were among them. A few of the planes sported combat damage so severe it was obvious, even viewed from a distance, their flying days were over. The rest looked perfectly airworthy. And looking across the field, the crewmen of The Lady M were disturbed to notice something else: two Luftwaffe aircraft, unmistakable, their markings still clearly visible.

  A police car drove up, its occupants satisfied by the crew’s proximity to the inferno that there was no danger of the aircraft blowing up. Two constables emerged from the car and politely demanded that the crew surrender their sidearms immediately. Several fire trucks arrived and began, ineffectively, to combat the blaze. After a few fruitless minutes, they focused on preventing the spread of the flames across the grass until the wreck burned out.

  Frank Hughes, the tail gunner, was grateful to be on the ground in one piece. He dropped to his knees and ran his hands through his close-cropped blond hair, bewildered by the sight of the flaming wreck from which they had just escaped. But silently, he wondered: What can of worms did we open by coming here?

  A different thought filled David Linker’s head: We should have just done the damned mission and gone home.

  And yet another occupied Joe Gelardi’s: I should have jumped with Freddy.

  Chapter Three

  The pain in Fred O’Hara’s left ankle made walking an imposing proposition; just standing proved difficult enough. He had come down in a wooded area and tangled with a tree just before reaching the ground. It had stopped his descent enough to deflate his parachute canopy; then a tree limb had broken with a sickening crack, sending him plummeting 30 feet to the ground, slowed only by impacts with several more tree limbs. He was lucky, he supposed, to only have the sprained ankle—and the assorted bumps and bruises. He’d have to learn to deal with the pain. After all, this was just another scrap, like countless others growing up poor in a turbulent Pennsylvania mill town. Brickbats, knives, guns—he had faced them all before. But he wished he had been dealt a better hand this time.

  His parachute canopy remained high in the tree, flapping like a big white flag of surrender in the late morning breeze. His impaired mobility had doomed his efforts to bring it down. He had no choice but to try and distance himself from it.

  He had expected to be met on the ground by German troops, or at least angry civilians. Three parachutes dropping out of the clear morning sky were hard to miss. Surely someone had seen their arrival.

  He got his bearings. He’d seen the other two land before him. Lou DiNapoli, the ball turret gunner, was a bit to the north; Larry Harkin, the bombardier, a bit to the west. Either man could not be more than a few hundred yards away.

  He suspected they were near the German city of Flensburg, not far from the Danish border; he was sure he recognized the outlines of the city to the north as he drifted down in his parachute. No matter—the American and British lines were hundreds of miles to the southwest. They did not have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting there. If they were not killed outright, they would live out the rest of the war in some prison camp. But the odds did not bother Fred O’Hara very much.

  At least nobody can call me a deserter. Not after Pilcher’s little stunt.

  He limped painfully toward Larry Harkin’s likely landing place. He had to cross a narrow road; he would have much preferred to sprint across it—less chance of being seen—but his ankle put that out of the question. He hoped DiNapoli would not be wandering along the road—in plain sight—in search of his co-pilot and bombardier. But O’Hara was pessimistic: DiNapoli’s dumb enough to ride the ball turret, so he just might be dumb enough not to hide, too.

  As O’Hara struggled along, he was struck by the peacefulness of his surroundings: the woods quiet, only the sound of birds chirping; the bright blue sky above the tree tops; tall grass and wildflowers in the open fields bowing to a light breeze. A peaceful summer morning. Just minutes ago and miles above, he had faced violent death while preparing to deal violent death. The tangled, white contrails left by that airborne mayhem were dispersing, like so many wispy, windblown clouds. The contrast disoriented him; surely this beautiful setting could not be part of a world at war? The jarring pain in his ankle dragged him back to reality.

  The heavy flying suit—so necessary to keep warm at high altitude—was causing O’Hara to be drenched in sweat here on the ground. He pulled off the leather jacket and flying helmet and tucked them under his arm. The ankle was killing him; his slow progress made him wonder what chance he had of escaping capture. Maybe he should just tell the other two to strike off without him. Assuming, of course, they were not injured, too.

  But Larry Harkin was injured, far worse than O’Hara. He, too, had tangled with a tree, and his left leg was fractured. It was twisted unnaturally beneath him as he lay on the ground; the jagged end of the broken femur protruded from the torn leg of his flying suit. Blood spurted from the severed femoral artery, turning the dark brown soil black. And his parachute, too, remained suspended in the tree that had caught it, a second white flag for all to see.

  Another harsh contrast plagued Fred O’Hara. Just last night, while visiting a pub in the little village near their English base, he had been furious with Larry Harkin, ready to come to blows. Damn Midwestern farm boy, with his tall, blond good looks…the girl O’Hara had been trying to chat up ditched him to make a play for Harkin’s attentions. She was not even polite about it; he had overheard a comment she made to another girl, calling him a “bloody Irish thug.” O’Hara had proceeded to get nasty drunk, and only Joe Gelardi’s intervention had prevented the inevitable fight between the co-pilot and bombardier. At least he had gotten back to the billet early and gotten a few hours’ sleep before the 3 a.m. wake-up, something most of the other crew members lacked. They had used those same hours attempting to coax young English ladies out of their knickers. But who really cared about sleep? You lived on coffee and adrenaline—and you stood a pretty good chance of your young life ending very soon.

  “Freddy…I think I’m fucked,” was all Larry Harkin managed to say before slipping into shock.

  Fred O’Hara flopped to the ground, next to Harkin. He tried to fashion a tourniquet from his belt but it was no use; Larry had lost too much blood already. Fred watched his crewmate’s face turn ashen as his life slipped away.

  Suddenly, a sound of thrashing footsteps; Lou DiNapoli appeared. He did not seem injured from the jump at all. Damn eighteen year olds can take all kinds of punishment…us old men of twenty have it real tough, O’Hara thought.

  “Ahh shit, Lieutenant!” DiNapoli cried as he saw Harkin’s broken body. When, a second later, he realized that O’Hara could hardly walk on his injured ankle, he mumbled, “Oh, brother…what are we gonna do, Lieutenant?”

  “First, get Larry’s and my chutes out of the trees. They’re a dead giveaway to where we are. Where’s your chute, Louie?”

  “I hid it under some bushes.”

  “Okay, good. Pull this one down, then go do mine…it’s about a hundred fifty yards that way. Unfortunately, you can’t miss it,” he said, pointing east. “Then come back here. Maybe I’ll have an idea what to do next by then.”

  It took Lo
u DiNapoli several minutes to free Harkin’s parachute from its tree. He rolled it up, set it down next to O’Hara, and said, “Here…use it for a cushion or something.” Then he reached into the pockets of his flying suit and pulled out two chocolate bars. After flipping one to O’Hara, he tore open the other.

  “How many bars you got?” O’Hara asked. He knew DiNapoli never went anywhere without an ample supply of chocolate.

  “Enough to last us a coupla days.”

  Then DiNapoli set out to take down the last chute, intently munching on the chocolate bar.

  O’Hara lay back on the soft silk of the parachute and waited. This DiNapoli kid seems to be a lot like me…grew up poor in a tough neighborhood, a little guy scrapping for every crumb. And he’s brave enough—or crazy enough—to ride the ball turret. The ball turret gunner hung beneath the aircraft in his plexiglass fishbowl, curled into a most uncomfortable position, his head stuck between two big machine guns. The worst part was that with his feet as high as his head, he seemed to be presenting his genitals to the enemy. Literally asking to get his testicles shot off. O’Hara managed a fleeting smile: Maybe that’s why they call it the “ball” turret. Small guys like Louie DiNapoli seemed to have the least trouble working in that cramped, contorted hell. Claustrophobics need not apply.

  Harkin’s breathing became a shallow rattle. He was unconscious now. The flow from the severed artery was slowing. He could not have much longer. Suddenly there was a new sound—vehicles on the road nearby. They stopped, and in a few moments, German soldiers were walking toward Fred O’Hara and Larry Harkin. Fred stopped counting them at 10. Most had what seemed to be American chocolate bars sticking out of their tunic pockets. An officer, with pistol drawn, led the way.

  Lou DiNapoli was in the center of the group, his hands on his head, his sidearm holster empty. O’Hara thought about drawing his own sidearm but found his body would make no such movement, like his subconscious had already passed judgment on the pointlessness of the act.

  “I didn’t tell ’em shit, Lieutenant!” DiNapoli yelled, then was knocked to his knees by a rifle butt across the upper back.

  “I know you didn’t, Louie,” O’Hara replied. “Just be quiet. Only name, rank…”

  Waving his pistol at O’Hara, the German officer said, in thickly accented English, “You would do well to follow your own advice…be quiet. Are you injured, airman?”

  “Yeah. My ankle.”

  “I am so sorry. Parachuting can be quite dangerous, no? And your comrade?” the German asked, pointing his pistol toward Harkin.

  “What do you think, Fritz? He look okay to you?”

  The German sighed. “We used to have a very fine hospital near here, but your jabos attacked it a few days ago. Most of the medical staff were killed. So unfortunate.”

  Jabos…short for Jadgbomber. Ground attack aircraft.

  O’Hara was transfixed by the German officer’s face. On each cheek there was a small, dark circle with several lines radiating from it, like a star—or a spider.

  “You are looking at my face, my friend. A most interesting wound, no? Courtesy of a Russian sniper with very good aim…but very bad luck. His bullet passed through my open mouth. I didn’t realize I had been shot until I spat blood and bits of teeth.”

  Fucking fascinating, O’Hara thought, wishing the sniper better luck next time.

  Then the German raised his pistol and fired one round into Larry Harkin’s head. The pink mist—brain tissue and blood spurting from the bullet hole—settled on a startled, deafened Fred O’Hara. The noise of the pistol shot, the muzzle so close to O’Hara’s head, might just as well have been a cannon shot.

  “I do him a favor, no?” the German asked as the shot’s echoes dwindled, not expecting an answer. Then he summoned two of his men to pick up Fred O’Hara and carry him to one of the vehicles. A stoic Lou DiNapoli was marched to a different vehicle, where he was placed along with Larry Harkin’s tarp-shrouded body.

  Lying on the floor of the truck, surrounded by German soldiers and still covered with his crewmate’s brains and blood, Fred O’Hara silently renewed his vow: he would kill Captain Leonard Pilcher.

  Chapter Four

  Oskar Steenslund was an impatient man. He had grown weary of this whole process. Another American aircrew had arrived, to be accommodated as internees. Worse, this crew’s insolent young commander was now sitting before him, asking—no, demanding—special privileges. This captain spoke in obscure parables, alluding to some exalted lineage, high social status and the entitlements thereof. Yet, he became surly when you failed to understand and questioned his meaning.

  “You are aware, Captain Pilcher, we have quite a few American and British aircrews in Sweden,” Steenslund said. “But you are the first, I believe, to ever request specific housing accommodations, apparently based on your social status. Several of your fellow internees are sons of American government officials. A few of the Brits are titled nobility. None have ever thought to place such demands on their hosts. We appreciate the fact that your father is ‘the noted industrialist Max Pilcher,’ as you say, and his firm has done much business with this nation, but quite frankly, my good Captain, you are all unexpected and unwelcome guests. You will be treated with decency and kindness, nevertheless.”

  Steenslund had expected the young captain across the table to become dismayed and defensive when tagged as an “unwelcome” guest. All the officers he had interviewed before had done so. They would carry on passionately how they had no choice: their plane was too badly damaged, or they had severely injured crewmembers, or they had become lost, separated from their formation. But their troubles mattered little to Oskar Steenslund. He was a civilian official of the Swedish Ministry of Defence, and his government had no interest in getting involved in this war in any military capacity. Sweden was officially neutral: holding and tending to wayward airmen from any of the belligerent nations until hostilities ceased or an equitable arrangement for their return negotiated was a function of that neutrality, no matter how those airmen came to be in Sweden. This had proved to be a great and costly bother, one for which the Swedes could expect little compensation and no profit other than a collection of warplanes for which they had little use. Judging whether an airman was a true casualty of war or just an opportunistic deserter was not something that officially concerned him or his government.

  No, this airman—Captain Leonard Pilcher, US Army Air Force—had merely smirked at Steenslund’s remarks, as if he knew better than this fat old civil servant. Then he renewed his request for lodging in a specific hotel in Stockholm—a very posh hotel, which he claimed to know well. Actually, he had never been to Sweden before; he had just heard the stories his daddy’s friends told.

  Steenslund glanced across the large table to his assistant, Pola MacLeish, and shrugged. Pola knew the shrug meant I am finished with this idiot. He is your problem now. Then Oskar Steenslund left the room, his gait a mid-paced waddle born of corpulence.

  Pilcher eyed this woman with whom he was now alone, sizing her up. She had yet to say a word. He thought her mousy, perhaps—her white-blonde hair tied into a bun; pale blue eyes behind wire-rimmed eyeglasses; a prim skirt and blouse, buttoned all the way up. He could not see her shoes, but he had heard their sound as she walked into the room. They sounded like oxfords, practical and unfeminine. Definitely not heels. It was a shame, he thought. She probably has a nice figure under those dowdy clothes. Hard to tell her age, though. She looks young, maybe early twenties…maybe a little more. Steenslund, that fat old man, had been a bureaucratic bore; Pilcher was glad to be rid of him. It should not be any problem manipulating this unimposing frump. After all, she was just a woman.

  “MacLeish…that’s an interesting name for a Swede. You are Swedish, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Captain, I am Swedish. My full name is Pola Nilsson-MacLeish. I am married to a British Army officer…a Scot…who is currently fighting the Japanese in Burma.”

  That bit of informa
tion surprised Pilcher and he schemed how to use it to advantage. He decided it best to feign interest. “How about that! How’d you two ever get together?”

  “We were both students at London School of Economics, before the war. Postgraduate studies. When Reginald left for India in 1941, I returned here, to Malmö, to stay with my family.”

  Okay…Grad student. Definitely in her mid-twenties. Bookish…probably never been laid good in her life. Not by no Scotsman, anyway…they’re all queers, just like the Brits…I’d fuck her in a pinch.

  “And you haven’t seen him in three years?”

  “That’s correct, Captain. A much-delayed letter now and then, since mail with England was re-established two years ago, but like everything in wartime, it is undependable. I can only assume…and hope…that he is well. We all suffer somehow, Captain. Even those of us in neutral countries…but I bore you with my problems. Now I must ask you some questions.”

  Start by asking me if I fucking care, lady.

  But Pilcher responded: “Go ahead, I’m all ears,” still feigning interest, still confident that this lonely young woman could be bent to his will.

  “All ears…that’s a very curious expression.” Her English—impeccable but featuring a thick Scottish accent—was befuddling but charming: “Verrry cuoooriouuus.” The word “internee” quickly became Pilcher’s favorite. When she said it, it came out “intu-ooornee.”