Authors: Gilbert Morris
“Sorry to come so late, but—” He broke off suddenly and the smile left his face when he noticed how pale she was and that her lips were twitching. “What’s wrong, Merry? Are you sick?”
She did not answer. She couldn’t! She wheeled and walked over to the window, leaving Brodie standing there. He put his hat on a chair and followed her. “What’s wrong?”
“Go away.”
But he was entirely serious now. “Have you had bad news?”
“
You’re
bad news! Now please go away!”
He did not know how to take what was happening. “I went to the mission and you weren’t there. Then I went to the hospital, and Kat told me you weren’t feeling well. She wouldn’t say what was wrong. I came by to see how you were.” Brodie stood waiting for her to answer, but she did not move. He could hear a muffled sobbing and finally he reached out and turned her around. Her face was pale and tears were running down her cheeks.
“Here. Sit down before you faint or somethin’.” He pulled her to the couch, keeping his arm around her. “Can’t you tell me what’s wrong, Merry? Can I help?”
“I thought . . . I thought you were dead,” she said in a muffled voice.
Brodie had grown tremendously fond of Meredith Bryce, and with his arm around her, he could feel the tenseness of her body and the tremors that were going through it. “I’m sorry to worry you.” She did not answer, and he began to explain. “I chased some Germans out over the Channel, and my engine conked out. I bailed out, and I got picked up almost right away by a British destroyer that was headed for Scotland. They couldn’t stop to let me off, and they couldn’t break their radio silence. Some kind of a secret mission. Anyway, there was no way I could call in. They let me off in Scotland. I had to catch a train back. I’m all right. Nothing to cry about.”
But Meredith had not moved. She was obviously still struggling, and the tears were now running freely down her cheeks. Brodie felt entirely helpless. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She whispered, “I never cried once when Donald was killed.”
Parker was no psychologist, but he knew Meredith was bound up tight and headed for real trouble. “Sometimes,” he said gently, “it’s the best thing to cry.” He pulled her into his arms, and she fell against him, sobbing. This was no dainty sort of crying. It shocked Brodie how she wept with great
gulping sobs and clung to him fiercely. He made comforting noises, but mainly he simply held her and stroked her back until the sobs began to mitigate.
She finally pulled away from him and sat back, and he reached into his pocket and gave her his handkerchief. She took it and wiped her face with it. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly.
“It’s all right,” he said with relief. “I don’t think anyone ever cried for me like that before.”
“It wasn’t just you, Brodie. I was worried, of course, but it’s all mixed up. I was thinking about Donald and about the other men who don’t come back, and it all caught up with me.”
Brodie took the handkerchief from her and wiped away more tears that she had missed. “I don’t like to see you cry.”
The room was quiet, and for a moment the two stared at each other. Something passed between them, and then suddenly color started to rise on Meredith’s cheeks. “You’d better go, Brodie. No man likes to be around a weepy woman.”
But he shook his head. “No, not unless you’ll go with me. Let’s go get something to eat.”
“It’s too late, but I’ll fix you something.”
“All right, but I can’t help. I can’t even boil water without burning it.”
“It won’t be much,” Meredith said as she got up. “How does a ham and cheese omelet sound?”
“Sure, and anything else you find. Throw it in there.”
Relieved to have something to do, Meredith moved around the kitchen putting the simple meal together. True enough, she had not wept over Donald when he died, but now she realized she should have. She marveled at the strength she had, even though she still felt a bit weak.
As she fixed the omelet, Brodie began telling her stories of his youth in Georgia. Before long he even had her laughing. She put the omelet on a plate before him, and he ate heartily while she drank some of the tea she had made.
Afterward they sat talking quietly, and the mood turned serious again. “I’m glad you’re all right,” she told him.
“So am I.” He looked at her intently. “Are you okay now?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’d better go. We’ll have the neighbors gossipin’ ’bout us—and I got my reputation to think of, you know.” He got to his feet, and she followed him to the door. He put his hat on and opened the door.
“You’ve been a comfort to me, Brodie.” She looked at her feet for a moment. “And you didn’t try to take advantage of me—as most men would.”
“I must be close to achieving sainthood.” He hesitated, then nodded. “Thanks for caring about me.”
She did not answer, and her eyes looked enormous by the dim light.
“I never told you how beautiful you are, did I?”
Meredith suddenly smiled. “In this ratty old robe, no makeup, and spilling tears like a waterfall?”
But he did not smile. He reached out and touched her cheek. “Yes, you are.” He turned and left without another word.
Meredith closed the door and went to the window. After a moment he appeared in front of the apartment building and got into a military truck. As she watched him drive away, she realized that she felt more for this man than she should.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bernie
The noise in the ready room was dominated, as usual, by a raucously blaring radio. A Ping-Pong tournament had attracted several of the fliers. A few were reading, and Brodie and his flight leader, Bernie Cox, were engaged in a fast-moving chess game. Although Brodie could beat Bernie at anything involving strength or dexterity, he had never beaten him at a game of chess. Chess was Bernie Cox’s delight, and next to his art, he loved it better than any other activity on the face of the planet.
Bernie leaned forward, his hand poised over the board delicately—almost like a surgeon preparing to open a patient’s body. He picked up a chess piece and moved it. Then he leaned back and locked his fingers behind his head. “Checkmate. I win again.”
“I’ll never play another game with you, Bernie!” Brodie said, frustration written on his face. “I don’t see how you do it. I can never beat you.”
“It’s all in the mind, old boy.”
“I don’t think you’re that much smarter than me.”
“Perhaps not in everything, but I happen to be a genius at chess.”
Bernie puffed out his chest proudly and tipped back in his chair, but he went too far. He started flailing wildly, but it was too late to stop the chair from crashing backward. Brodie laughed uproariously as his flight leader got to his feet.
“You might be great at chess, but you’re sure as shootin’ the clumsiest guy I’ve ever seen!”
Bernie looked embarrassed but quickly righted his chair. “Let’s play again,” he challenged, sitting down again and setting up the board. “If I can beat you once more, I think it’ll be an even hundred that I’ve taken from you.”
Brodie rolled his eyes and helped set up the board again, thinking about how close he’d gotten to the two men in his flight—Bernie Cox and Sailor Darley. They had grown to know each other so well that they hardly needed the radio when they were flying. They had practiced their maneuvers more than most of the flights, but it was almost eerie the way the three could move into action, each always knowing what his two wing mates were doing.
Brodie felt particularly close to Bernie because Bernie had taken him to his home to introduce him to his parents. It had been an enjoyable day for Brodie, and he liked the parents a great deal. Bernie was their only son, and he knew, despite the smiles, they were deeply concerned for his safety.
Brodie had also been impressed with Bernie’s talent for painting. He was not the best pilot in the squadron, but he painted amazingly well. One of his paintings had been of a Spitfire attacking a lone ME-109 high in the clouds. The painting caught the spirit of battle, with beauty and violence married together high above the earth. He had admired it so much that Bernie had given him the painting, refusing any money for it. He had also painted a picture of Brodie leaning against the wing of his plane with his flight suit on and his helmet in his hand.
As they set up the board and began to play again, their individual styles of play reflected their personalities. Brodie moved quickly and impulsively, as if he could not wait to get the piece from one square to another. He sometimes made amazing moves, and that won him games against lesser players than Bernie. Bernie, on the other hand, was meditative
and thoughtful. He loved the order and the precision that Brodie lacked.
****
Parker was speaking with his group captain, Howard Monroe, over the noise of the radio and the Ping-Pong tournament. Monroe had come to make an inspection, and now the two men stood in one corner of the room discussing the fliers.
Monroe took his eyes off the pilots to face Parker. His brow furrowed and he shook his head. “You look terrible, Braden. Why don’t you take some time off?”
“I’m no worse off than anyone else, Captain.”
“It looks to me like you are. The responsibility for the squadron rests with you. You need to try to spare yourself a bit.”
Parker had heard this before. “I’ll try to do that, sir.”
“See that you do. Tell me about the men. What’s their condition? Are they holding up well?”
“Yes, sir. Very well indeed.”
“There’s been a lot of talk about the one called Cowboy.”
“That’s him over there playing chess. The taller one. He’s the best pilot in the squadron. He’s shot down fourteen planes. Well, at least he’s credited with that many. I’m sure he actually has more that weren’t identified.”
“A good pilot, eh?”
“The finest.”
“How does he fit in? I mean, being an American and all.”
“Very well. But I might say he’s not much on discipline.”
“I suppose that comes from being an American.”
“It might be. What I would like to see—”
The loudspeaker interrupted Parker’s words. “Scramble, 120 Squadron, scramble!”
“I’ll have to go, sir.”
“Yes. I’ll wait around until you get back from this mission. We need to talk some more.”
****
As Brodie looked ahead, he saw a tight formation of enemy bombers guarded by what seemed to be a great many 109s. His radio crackled, and he heard Parker’s voice say, “All right, lads, there they are. Let’s go get them.”
Even as Parker spoke, Brodie saw a flight of RAF Hurricanes attack the German formations, their guns ablaze. Soon several of the German bombers and fighters were headed for the ground in flames.
“Bandits at twelve o’clock!” Bernie’s voice came sharply. “Close up!”
They closed the distance that lay between planes. “Number five, attack!” Parker commanded.
The squadron altered shape, altered course, and then changed again. Suddenly the German bombers also changed course, banking steeply to their right.
“They’re breaking up,” Parker said. “Go at them and watch out for one another, chaps.”
A calmness came upon Brodie as it usually did for a few seconds before making contact. His whole mind was fixed on the bombers, and as he made one pass along with his wing mates, Bernie and Sailor, he saw his tracers mark the path between his plane and one of the bombers. He knew he had hit the pilot when he saw the bomber veer and start flying erratically.
From that point on the squadron fought with everything it had. Finally the battle became merely a blur.
“Get into formation!” Cox barked. “We’ve got a signal there’s a group of Jerries just over there. I think I can see them.”
Brodie pulled in tight next to Bernie. He noticed that some of the other Spitfires were also working to get into formation again.
As they approached the new crew of bombers, Bernie said,
“Watch out for fighters. I don’t see any, but they’re probably here. Watch my back as we go in.”
The three planes wheeled almost as one, with Bernie Cox in the middle and Sailor on the other side. Brodie followed Bernie’s movements exactly, although everything in him yearned to simply go in after his prey.
“All right, chaps. Here we go. Let’s hope you’re better at shooting than you are at chess, Blue Three.”
“I’ll beat you next time. See if I don’t,” Brodie called back.
The flight went in, made one pass, and shot down one of the bombers. “There’s no fighter cover,” Brodie said. “Let’s just go get ’em.”
“No. Stay in formation. We’ve got to cover for each other.”
Brodie had a great affection for Bernie Cox, but what he saw ahead was entirely too tempting. He was supposed to cover Bernie’s rear to be sure nothing came up from behind, but when he saw one of the enemy bombers veer off and streak away toward the Channel, he said, “I can get him. You guys wait for me.”
Wheeling his Spitfire around, Brodie caught up with the bomber, which could not match his speed. He had him in his sights, and he had sent two short bursts when he suddenly heard Sailor yell, “Look out, Bernie! Bandits behind you!”
Brodie wheeled the Spitfire around. It was his job to watch his flight leader’s rear, and he had wandered away. By the time he got back to his position, he saw Bernie’s Spitfire heading down in flames, and a cold hand seemed to constrict around his heart. “Bernie,” he yelled, “bail out!”
But Bernie Cox could not bail out. He had been taken from behind by a 109, and the first burst had killed him instantly. He had collapsed on the stick and went down like a lead ball.
“Watch yourself, Brodie,” Sailor shouted. “They got Bernie. There’s too many of ’em for us.”
But Brodie did not answer. He was following the fall of Bernie’s Spitfire, willing it to straighten up, repeatedly calling out, “Bernie, pull out!”
But he did not pull out. His Spitfire hit the earth with such force that the wings flew off and the rest of the frame shattered.
Numbly Brodie turned his Spitfire back. The dogfight was still going on, and a red rage enveloped him. He threw himself back into the battle, totally disregarding his own safety. The world was filled with the clatter of machine guns and the scream of planes, and death reigned in the sky over the battered body of Bernard Cox.