In Times of Rain and War by Camron Wright

Author:Camron Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2021-03-24T21:20:21+00:00

Urged forward by the colonel, Wes crept toward the bomb, looking back at his commander the same way one might glare into the eyes of a horse just before climbing on to ride for the first time.

“You’ve watched me do it before,” the colonel assured. “There’s no reason to be nervy. Not with this one. Not after what you’ve been through.”

To Wes, it seemed obvious. “That’s why I am nervy.”

Badger and Gunner had exposed the ordnance, just four feet down, and then attached the electric stethoscope, now being monitored by Badger from a good three hundred feet away. It was merely for practice since, if the fuze markings were to be believed, this small, fifty-kilogram bomb was armed with a simple (15) impact fuze. Unless the Germans had unexpectedly started to mismark their bombs, this was one of the easiest of all ordnances to defuse.

Wes caught himself swaying. “I’m nervous,” he told the colonel, “because this time, the outcome is on me. If I’d have died while you were disarming the fuze, that’s one thing. But if I become a gold star in my mom’s window because of my own stupid mistakes, why, she’ll never forgive me.”

The colonel’s arms unfolded. “Let me go over it one more time,” he said, his voice fatherly. “Place the Crabtree Diffuser over the fuzehead and tighten the side screw. Let the charge drain from the condensers for at least thirty seconds, and then use the key wrench to unscrew the locking ring. Carefully extract the fuze, then unscrew the gaine. Put the gaine in one pocket, the fuze in the other—and you’re done.”

“And there can’t be a (50) or a ZUS to booby-trap this one, right?”

“Not if we trust the number stamped into the fuze, and plus, the fuze pocket is too small.”

Wes exhaled. “And you’ll be right by my side?”

The colonel coughed like an almond was stuck in his throat. “Do you think I’m daft? No, I won’t be by your side, but I’ll be close enough that you can shout—and call out what you do each step of the way. If you blow yourself up, I want to know why.” There was no grin hitched to his statement, no humor tagging along whatsoever.

Wes knelt reluctantly beside the bomb, unbuttoned his shirt collar, took out his tools, and set them in the dirt to wait their turn. Most important was the Crabtree Diffuser. It was a shallow-rimmed brass disc about the size of a pocket watch whose insides had been taken out and replaced with two parallel prongs used to depress the bomb’s plungers. According to the colonel, it was the earliest innovation of the Backroom Boys, developed during the war’s first days once bombing of the port cities had started. The boys in the lab reasoned that if Germany could charge their fuzes by leaking electricity into firing capacitors after their bombs had left the plane, then the British could probably discharge them in the selfsame way—and they proved to be right.

Wes

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