Work Text:
25 July 1943 // over Hamburg, Germany
“This is Tango-Sierra dash Lima! If anyone has ears, we have been hit. We are going down!”
Alfred’s voice hissed through his oxygen mask. The liaison radio crackled as his fingers held down its button harshly. His wheel fought him as Dear Davie grew unresponsive in the hastening wind. “I repeat, this is Tango-Sierra dash Lima! We have taken two direct hits and are going down!”
Clyde made a noise behind Alfred and painfully he twisted to see the legs of his flight engineer shaking. The kid’s pants were shredded by shrapnel and soaking through with his blood. Pain lanced through the bits of flak embedded across Alfred’s back and he turned himself back to face his controls, teeth grinding. Not even blood could close his eyes in that moment. He feared for the state of the aircraft beyond the pilot compartment. The altimeter turned like a mad hare, counting down their height, and making Alfred’s brows crunch together. While this wasn’t his first crash trajectory, it was for his crew.
They needed to abandon ship.
“Daryl, take the radio. Prepare everyone to bail,” Alfred trailed off, ringing the bailout bell in three short bursts. With a twinge, he ripped off his oxygen mask. His copilot winced beside him. Daryl’s voice echoed his order into the command intercom and with that Alfred was removing himself from the pilot’s seat. Without a word, the other man took up his wheel.
“Kid!” He shouted up. No reply. “Ray-gun!” The youngest member of Alfred’s crew only shook harder in front of his eyes, but at least that meant he was indeed still alive. Yelling his name again garnered a weak response of his right foot shifting.
“Yes, sir?” The kid’s thick Boston brogue was shaken and strained.
Alfred called up again, “I’m going to help you down. We’re bailing!”
Even through the roar of the bomber’s remaining propellors the clank of Clyde abandoning his turret’s guns sounded. Alfred gripped the most whole parts of his crewman’s flight pants and began to pull. Clyde sandbagged straight into Alfred’s chest. The teen came down too easily into his arms and worry mounted the heap of other troubles in the pilot’s mind.
“Cap, I’m not sure I—”
“I’ll help you with the ‘chute. We just need to get you out of this tin can. Reed?” Daryl turned at the shout of his name and Alfred hurriedly gestured as he grabbed the engineer’s parachute. Headsets throughout the plane crackled with the copilot’s scared tenor. Parachutes on. Alfred struggled to slip the harness onto Clyde’s thin form through the fire in his own flesh. Already his body was trying to fix the physical damage, but he had to ignore it. His human crew weren’t half as lucky.
Leaving Clyde leaned against the control platform, Alfred clambered down and to the bomb bay. Immediate regret flooded him. Terrifyingly blue sky stared at him balefully through great holes rent into Davie’s skin where flak had chewed through. Like a dog with a rabbit in its mouth; that was the effect of the Germans’ heavy flak guns. It sounded like it too as wind howled into the rough-hewn maw. The first relief Alfred had felt in several minutes blew past to see no ordnance in the bomb bay, for it had been dropped hopefully on target before they were hit. With one last look back at Clyde’s slumped form Alfred ran across the catwalk.
What met his eyes made the pilot suck in a breath. A great window to the speeding air mocked the bodies of his crew strewn in the ravaged fuselage. Johnny was slumped away from Alfred to his right, jacket torn to bits and the meat of his back showing through like a warning flag. The eyes of one of his waist gunners – was that Les or Paul? – stared back cold through blood-flecked goggles. If Tommy was even still in the aircraft, Alfred couldn’t see the young man’s body. It was miracle enough the tail was still attached. Metal crunched under Alfred’s fingertips as he gripped the small doorway. He didn’t dare look down for Will in the ball turret. All he would see was a fine red mist if he did. Suddenly his heart hurt. None of these souls would be bailing with them.
Feeling sick, Alfred made his return across the thin walkway. Davie suddenly rattled and Alfred gripped one of the bomb racks. He looked down to glimpse the landscape rush past thousands of feet below. They had only just performed bombs away when shot full of shrapnel. At the forward end he rapidly cranked the piecemeal bay doors open.
“Bail!” He ordered on his return. Clyde looked up foggily and Daryl turned on him with wide eyes, hands moving. Six short bursts of the bailout bell rang. Crash landing. “Bail!”
Jumping back into his seat, Alfred wrangled the jittering yoke. It was his duty as pilot to make sure his crew escaped. He would be the last to jump. At the very least he could try and hold the remains of Davie steady for them. With his final command repeated to Charlie and Dickie in the nose, Daryl scrambled to throw on his own parachute and grab Clyde below him. In the copilot’s moment of hesitation, Alfred knew his thoughts. A jump through the ruined bomb bay was easier for all of them.
Even in her state, Davie fought him hard. She’d always been a fighter. Messerschmitt fire, stabilizer failures, and a taxiing accident hadn’t kept her grounded, yet now they all faced a final flight. Alfred forced the wheel steady with one hand and slammed the fuel shut-off switches at his right. All propellors on high. A quick end for the plane on the ground. He knew he couldn’t gain full control, but he had to try for a moment. But this was the toughest horse he’d tried to soothe. Switches and levers thunked into their places as Alfred executed his emergency checklist. Davie sputtered angrily and Alfred pushed her into a shallow dive.
Dickie passed underneath him, and the movement made Alfred flick a look behind him. Daryl and Clyde were gone. Dickie gave him the same wide-eyed look his brother had before, then disappeared from Alfred’s view. Charlie followed and paused; neck craned to stare at Alfred. “Just don’t take too long, Jones!”
Alfred couldn’t watch the bombardier jump. A last look to the rushing clouds through the windshield. His favorite shade of crisp high-altitude blue soured before him at the situation. Davie’s structure groaned sadly, and Alfred petted the control panel in front of him. A last solemn breath with her.
Jerking the wheel into a sharp dive made Davie groan once more. Alfred had to pretend he couldn’t hear the grinding of the bomber’s remaining parts crying out. With his foot he slammed the rudder lock beside him and tore his parachute from beside the seat. Pain and a fierce itch crawled up his spine as the heavy kit slapped against his back. His hands flew to tighten the straps. Slipping in a smear of Clyde’s blood tore an undignified noise from Alfred’s throat, throwing out hands to steady himself. Not even a look back at the control panel before Alfred threw himself out of the bomb bay.
Bright sun scorched his eyes through his flight goggles. Wind grabbed at every loose flap of him that it could. It crowded his eardrums and drowned any thoughts he’d had into the ether. Alfred tried to reorient himself in his fall to find his crew. He spun his body unsupported through the vast sky. It would’ve been fun if they weren’t crash landing in enemy territory, he told himself. Flashing white spots against the racing ground told him they’d already released, and so should he.
Pulling his chute yanked his body. Cloth unfurled loudly above Alfred and marginally slowed him. In control, he took stock of the four other spots on the horizon. Daryl and Clyde were reasonably the closest to the ground, followed by Dickie, then Charlie closest to him. He thought he saw the bombardier wave. Twisting around, Alfred watched distraught as Davie plummeted, a wrecked and burning angel through the morning. Destroyed as she was, her broad wings were still the safest hold for the men they couldn’t take with them. Her sweet blue daisy they had all given her didn’t show, but Alfred knew with certainty that it would be the finest flower upon their graves.
“Godspeed,” Alfred whispered.
Alfred sprinted toward the rest of his crew. His landing had drifted far from the rest. He had to check on them. Tearing off his parachute had been the only answer to him once he touched ground. Cooking in the thick flight jacket as he ran didn’t matter then, a trifle. Only Charlie came into view. Concern gnawed at Alfred’s brain. As loud as his great lungs would allow, he called, “Sound off!”
“Marstaller, here!”
“Dickie here, Captain!”
“Reed, sir!”
Daryl’s voice was more distant. No Clyde. Alfred paused long enough to tell the other two to abandon the parachutes for now before continuing. Adrenaline fueled his sprint and he slid home the moment he spied the short airman laid out on the grass.
The kid was worse than Alfred had understood in the air, and now after their landing. One foot splayed incorrectly. The pilot’s stomach turned. He had come in wrong. Shrapnel stuck out from several spots along his legs and Clyde whined pitifully when Alfred probed them. Daryl held the kid’s head. Lacerations lines his legs and his stomach, many of them angry and deep. So much of his skin was jagged and red. “He’s not doing well. He’s lost a lot of blood already Frankie.”
Alfred hushed his copilot, but his words were true. Clyde’s clothes were more soiled than not, and his prospects weren’t looking good. Vague memories from their time together as crew began to play in Alfred’s head. Clyde “Pepsi” Ray, 17, who lied to get in because he wanted to do his part. He would need to remember that, to add it to the names of the others ahead of time. They couldn’t very well carry him back to England, if the kid even made it as far as whatever village they could find for his condition. He most likely wouldn’t survive whatever the Germans might do to them if found. This was enemy territory whether they liked it or not.
Clyde Ray, 17, brother to two sisters, beloved son of a Boston mother. He once said sunrises were his favorite, so at least he got to witness one last one. It wasn’t kind to think of him as dead already, but Alfred had to be practical for once. No words sprung forth.
Except for Clyde’s. “Did we do good?” The engineer’s thin voice sounded too faint for how close he was. Alfred paled. He wasn’t a comforter. But this was one of his own, and it was his duty as their commander. Fearful eyes bored into him when he glanced to Clyde’s face.
“We did what we could, Ray-gun.” Alfred said plainly.
“Did I do good?”
Hesitation. “Kid, you’re like a sniper with that turret. That’s why we call you Ray-gun.”
“But,” Clyde chuckled despite himself, “I thought I was ‘Pepsi”.”
“Yeah, you’re that too,” Alfred stated with as much joy as he could. Dickie spoke up behind him.
“And we’re gonna get you the first one we can find when we get back to England!” If we can make it back at all echoed the unspoken thought.
Charlie scoffed, “I still can’t believe y’all prefer that crust over Dr Pepper.”
Dickie rebuked. “Only you would say that, steer boy—"
“Both of you stop that.” Daryl spoke harshly and silence fell like a thousand-pounder. Alfred nodded at him in thanks. Clyde’s woeful face filled his vision once more. It reminded Alfred so much of a younger Mattie, sick in bed, waiting to hear whatever story Alfred had brought to entertain, that he had to shut his eyes against the memories, lest he grow too attached. His remaining crew breathed together and the quiet continued.
“Captain?” Clyde again.
“What’s on your mind, kid?”
“Did we give ‘em hell?”
“Yes, sir we did,” Alfred nodded, “several thousand pounds of it, in fact. H.E. Goodwill as a gift in good damn Congressional faith to the Fuhrer and any future Fuhrers. We’ll do it again, too.” A chorus of voices agreed with him. Clyde chuckled at that. He barely whispered the word ‘wicked’ and craned his neck to look at them all.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we make it home?” Several answers floated around them from the crew. Alfred said nothing. His first duty would be to take the kid’s dog tag to the right people. Grim confidence bolstered his hypothesis. Wispy, dreamy, Clyde mused. “I think I’ll send a letter to my sisters…”
The rest of them waited for the engineer to continue, but nothing more came. Birdsong in the bushes pealed loud and far too jovially in the moment. And if the breath hadn’t left his chest, Alfred would’ve thought Clyde asleep with the way his wide brown eyes had closed. Together they knelt by the boy, almost a man, and gave him silence as the sun continued to fly higher above them. Minutes passed and none of them had much of a clue on what to say. But Alfred knew they couldn’t wait around to be captured.
“I’m taking his tags and whatever personal items I can find, but we can chew the cud on the move. You three, saddle up. We have a long way back home.”