Silver Wings, Iron Cross by Tom Young

Author:Tom Young [Young, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2020-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

24

Executioners

In the glow of the fire pit, Wilhelm held his second piece of fish over the flames. The American sat across from him, uncharacteristically silent, eating slowly and staring into the fire. On the ground nearby rested the bones of the filleted pike, with the head and tail still attached. The exposed skeleton put Wilhelm in mind of the bleaching timbers of a long-grounded schooner.

Another bomber formation droned overhead. Wilhelm braced himself for the thuds and flashes, but none came. Presumably, the aircraft headed for a target so deep in the Reich that its destruction would take place out of earshot. They appeared to fly unopposed, at least for this portion of their route; Wilhelm heard no antiaircraft fire.

Yes, he realized, this war is well and truly lost.

“There go your friends,” Wilhelm said, glancing up at the heavens.

The American finished a bite of fish, licked his fingers, wiped his hands on his trousers.

“Yeah,” the Yank said, looking aloft. “But my closest friends were shot down with me. I sure hope they’re safe on the ground somewhere. I know my copilot’s dead, but I want to think the others made it.”

“Many of my classmates are at the bottom of the Atlantic,” Wilhelm said. “You and I, all our comrades, have been so busy fighting, we have had no time to grieve.”

“I guess not.”

Wilhelm kept his next thought to himself: And you and I will likely never get time to grieve.

The next hour passed in silence, and the two dried their clothing by the fire. With no sounds of dogs or other pursuers, the two men judged it safe to try to sleep—but they got little rest. A breeze came in on a cold front that dropped the temperature nearly to freezing. For warmth, they lay close together with their backs to each other. Wilhelm slept only in snatches, and he suspected the Yank fared no better. Wilhelm did not voice his next thought: If we do not reach the Allies before winter sets in, we will either freeze to death or surrender. We do not have the gear to survive out of doors in deep cold.

The first light of dawn revealed high overcast the color of steel. The fugitives had camped in a grove of pin oaks, with a carpet of ferns across the forest floor. Autumn had turned the ferns from green to yellow. Wilhelm and the American kicked dirt into their fire pit, and discussed a plan for the day. They decided once again to travel for as far as the woods would conceal them, then assess the terrain where the trees ended.

They hiked slowly and kept their footfalls as quiet as possible. Every few hundred meters, they stopped to look and listen. At one point, Wilhelm thought he saw a rifle barrel aiming from behind a tree, but it turned out to be only a dead branch, fallen from canopy above and resting at an odd angle.

You’re seeing things, he told himself. Either through paranoia, lack of sleep, or morning mist.

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