Defiant Heart (30 page)

Dahlgren felt the blood drain from his face. Heart pounding, he forced himself to remain calm.

“Mort, I don’t have that kind of money. Not right now. Can’t you buy me some time?”

With a sad expression, Fletcher shook his head. “Believe me, Jim, I tried. I also tried to get them to go with a smaller principal reduction. Unfortunately, the board is adamant.”

Dahlgren took a deep breath. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

Fletcher tilted his head slightly. “There’s one thing.”

Dahlgren felt a glimmer of hope.

“However,” Fletcher added, “you’re probably not going to like it.”

Reluctantly, Dahlgren motioned for Fletcher to continue.

“Earlier this month, we consulted with Tom Anderson regarding our rights and remedies. He’s the bank’s general counsel. A couple days ago, Tom came to us with a proposal.” He paused. “Tom has a client who’s interested in purchasing the hardware store.”

Dahlgren was surprised. He’d not heard of any interest in the store, not that he’d ever contemplated selling it. “Who is it?”

Fletcher shook his head. “I don’t know. Tom said it’s confidential. If the sale doesn’t go through, his client doesn’t want his identity revealed. The offer is twenty thousand dollars, all-cash, close in ten days.”

Fletcher leaned forward. “Jim, I got the board to agree that, if you go along with this and allow the entire purchase price to go to the bank, we’ll forgive the balance of the debt. You’ll keep your house. Your membership here in the Lodge will be safe. I think it’s a fair offer.”

Dahlgren took a sip of water and sat back. Dahlgren’s Hardware had been in his family for three generations. It would be a huge blow to lose it. But, then, again, what options did he have? If he turned the bank down, he’d very likely lose everything. He had to agree with Fletcher. It was, under the circumstances, a fair offer.

He put a hand up to his face and, with thumb and forefinger, pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging gently. Finally, he looked at Fletcher.

“Tell Tom to write it up. You’ve got a deal.”

#

After the election, Mary returned to school. It was really more just to get out of the house and to feel a part of the world again than to further her education.

On a sunny December morning, she and Sam drove to the school. Sam was full of news about the school play. This year, she would again have a prominent role, but not the lead. Instead, Mrs. Bell had turned over the directorial duties to her.

Listening amiably, Mary steered the Packard into the parking lot and pulled up to a spot near the building directly in front of the bicycle rack. She set the brake and turned off the engine. She saw that there were a couple of bikes in the rack, and a group of students mingled nearby. Something about the whole scene caused her to pause, a hand still on the wheel.

Sam, who had been chattering happily, was already out of the car. She leaned back in.

“Mary?”

Mary turned to her. “Hmm?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

Mary shook her head absently.

“The fundraiser is a week from Saturday. I can bring a guest, and, seeing as how I’m currently unentangled, if you know what I mean, I was hoping you would come with me. We’re doing it right this year. It’s going to be out at the Lodge.”

As she said the last word, Sam seemed to realize something. She stood frozen, one hand on the door, a stricken look on her face.

Mary nodded slowly and turned back to look at the bicycle rack.

A cold tingling sensation started at the back of her neck and spread down through her body. She drew in a sharp breath. Vivid images swirled in front of her. Wonderful images. Horrible images. She hunched forward, then sat back.

She turned to Sam, who now looked very frightened. “Mary, I…”

“It’s ok,” Mary said immediately. Then she repeated, “It’s ok.”

She let the images settle. She took a deep breath. Focus, she told herself. She sat as still as she could, heart beating rapidly. What seemed like a long time passed.

The driver’s door opened. Sam, who had come around, put a hand on Mary’s left shoulder and the other on her left thigh and gently started pushing. “Mary, I need to take you to the doctor.”

Mary pushed her away. “No.” She stared at Sam, whose face had become a study in panic. With as much calm as she could muster, she said, “I’m all right.”

Sam stared back, fear and concern battling in her eyes.

“Sam, I understand now.” Mary thought for a moment. And then it became even more clear to her. “I have to go.” She reached forward and started the engine.

“I don’t think you should…”

“It’s all right,” Mary said, calmly, but firmly. “Please, Sam.”

Uncertainly, Sam stepped back. Mary closed the door, but she rolled the window down half way. “It’s all right,” she repeated. “I know where I have to go.”

She released the brake, put the car in gear, and, leaving Sam standing in the middle of the parking lot, pulled away.

#

It had taken Ben much longer than he’d expected to complete the repairs on the Cessna. By early December, however, he was finally ready to test the engine. On this Tuesday morning, the sun had come out, and the mercury on the thermostat climbed well above freezing. It was an auspicious sign.

A motion in the distance caught his eye, and he looked up over the cowling of the Cessna to see a vehicle coming down the lane. He stepped down off the ladder he’d been straddling and watched as the car reached the end of the drive and pulled off, coming to a stop next to his truck. The driver’s side door opened, and a small figure emerged. Ben was surprised to see that it was a woman, though he did not immediately recognize her. Whoever it was, she left the door open and began running toward him. He took a step in her direction and realized suddenly that it was Mary Dahlgren. He took another step toward her, but, by then, she’d covered the distance between them, and she flung herself against him, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tight. Awkwardly, he returned the embrace, and they stood that way for a long moment.

Finally, Mary pulled away, looked up at him with glistening eyes and said, “Ben, I remember everything now.”

He studied her face. She wore an expression of profound sincerity. The comment was so odd, though, he didn’t know how to respond.

And then he understood. He pulled her close again, and she clung to him. “You couldn’t remember things after your injury,” he said, as much to himself as to her.

Her head nodded against his chest.

It had never occurred to him. In retrospect, though, it was the only explanation that actually made sense. He thought back to the day in Jim Dahlgren’s office when Jim had told him Mary didn’t want to have anything more to do with Jon. With Mary here now, he realized that was completely preposterous. All of a sudden, he felt like an old fool.

“What do you remember now?” he asked.

She stepped back again and used both hands to wipe her eyes. “Everything.”

“You remember what happened…” He wasn’t sure how to put it.

She gave him a direct look and nodded solemnly. “I remember what they tried to do to me. Those animals. The last thing I remember was Jon. Oh, Ben, he came for me. He came to rescue me. And,” she paused, thinking, “and then I was falling backwards. That must have been when I hit my head, because I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in the…” Her voice trailed off.

“Ben,” she said abruptly, her eyes imploring him, “where is Jon?”

13

Colonel Mark Halliday set down his pen and rubbed a hand across his face. He’d been writing letters for almost two hours, and he was exhausted. It wasn’t because of the physical exertion. Rather, his fatigue was attributable to the emotional wear that the letters extracted.

Each of the letters was addressed to a relative or loved one of a man in his group who had failed to return from a mission. The addressee was the official next of kin who would have earlier received a telegram from the Department of the Army bearing the tragic news that the son, husband, fiancé or other special person for whom he or she waited had been killed in service to his country. Halliday, as the commander of the 96th Bomb Group, had the duty to follow up the telegram with a personal message. In each letter, Halliday tried to bring a recollection of the recently deceased and, if possible, explain why the man’s sacrifice was a worthy and noble thing.

In the five months he’d had this command, Halliday had made it a point to meet each of the air crewmen in the four squadrons that made up his group and try to get to know them, at least on a casual basis. They were all fine, young men, tasked with a duty that was, for a commander, exceptionally difficult to order them to do.

Daylight precision bombing was something its critics had said would never work. The British employed a strategy of nighttime bombing, the cover of darkness shielding their planes to and from targets on the mainland of Europe. Bombing at night, however, involved a compromise in accuracy. The United States had plotted a different course. It’s plan was to send planes, armed with multiple guns capable of shooting down enemy aircraft and flying in tight formations, that would fight their way to and from their targets in full daylight, placing their bombs directly where they would do the most damage.

In the summer of 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force moved a handful of heavy bomber groups onto bases constructed in the English countryside, and bombing operations commenced in the late fall. Initially, the targets consisted of military installations in France. The distances to the targets were within the range of fighter planes flown from England, and these first formations of bombers were accompanied by escorts of British Spitfires, small nimble planes capable of engaging the German aircraft sent up to challenge the bombers.

Nothing could be done, of course, about the fire from ground-based anti-aircraft weapons. The majority of casualties suffered in the initial raids were a result of bursts from the deadly 88 millimeter shells fired from cannon placed around the targets being bombed.

As the bombing campaign moved into the winter months, the distances to the targets exceeded the capacity of the smaller planes. Once out of escort range, the bombers were completely on their own. Not only did they have to endure the murderous barrage of anti-aircraft fire over the target, they had to slog their way to and from the target across skies patrolled by German fighters.

Too many of the planes under Halliday’s command had not made it back to England. Some went down in fiery balls, with all ten crewmembers aboard perishing. Occasionally, some of the crew managed to escape their doomed craft by parachuting out. Most of those men, if they survived the fall, were captured by the Germans and interred in prisoner of war camps. Of the planes that made it home, many were badly shot up and full of dead or wounded men.

The tour of duty for each airman was twenty-five completed missions. At the rate his crews were currently suffering casualties, the odds of any one man making it safely through even half of his twenty-five missions were statistically insurmountable. And yet, mission after mission, his charges manned their craft and took to the air.

The men were extraordinarily young. A few were in their mid to late-twenties, but most were still, or had recently just been, teenagers. He consulted a list of replacements that were expected to arrive within the next couple of days. Here was one, he noted, who hadn’t even reached his eighteenth birthday. And, unfortunately, the likelihood of his ever reaching that eighteenth birthday was now exceptionally slim.

#

The troop transport lurched to a stop, and the corporal who had been driving jumped down and came around to the rear. “End of the line, sarge. Welcome to Stanbridge.”

Jon had slid the large duffle bag holding his gear from under the bench and put it by the rear of the truck bed. He retrieved the B-4 bag containing his rumpled Class A uniform from the spot on the opposite bench where he’d set it earlier that morning.

The corporal lowered the tail of the truck and Jon hopped down. He reached back, gripped the handle on the duffle, and hauled it out. “Thanks,” he said.

Jon stretched his sore muscles. It had been a long journey, the last leg of which had been a bumpy three-hour ride in the truck he’d just exited. He’d caught the ride from the base at Dunston Heath where, early that morning, he had landed with the crew of Plane 532. The trip from the States to his new posting had taken over three days.

The real journey, however, had begun the previous April, when he’d boarded a bus in Ridley, bound for Indianapolis.

In Indianapolis, he’d been put on another bus with about forty other young men, and they’d been driven to the train station, where Jon got his first lesson in the army way: Hurry up and wait.

They remained in the station for a day and a half before a special military train pulled in. By that time, their number had swelled to over three hundred. They boarded and, with stops at various points along the way, finally arrived in Clearwater, Florida, where the army had set up a training base for new recruits.

While in Clearwater, Jon received his first pieces of correspondence. One was a letter from Ben, written a week after he’d left. Ben reported that Mary was still in a coma, but she’d been transferred to the hospital in Terre Haute. Jon wrote back, letting Ben know where he was and asking that Ben keep him apprised of Mary’s condition.

A couple of days later, Jon received a letter from his grandmother.

“Dear Jonathon,” she had written, “I hope you don’t mind my using your full name. I know you like a more informal version, but it’s such a noble name I think it is a shame not to use it. I had the same issue with my Ernest. I hope, as Ernest did, that you will indulge me this idiosyncrasy.” She went on to give him gossip about people in town, many of whom he didn’t really know.

Jon also replied to this letter, informing his grandmother that he had no problem with her use of his full name, and that, in fact, he found it endearing. He told her he was well and that he welcomed her news. He did not mention Mary in the letter to his grandmother. He had seen no reason to trouble her.