Savage Sniper

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rex Faraday woke up in a sweat, tossing and turning on the hard boards of his bunk in the POW barracks. In his dream, he’d been on the plane again, a bomber that the crew had dubbed Blind Date. In the disorienting dark, it took him a few moments to get his bearings.

It’s all right, he soothed himself. You’re on the ground.

He still had nightmares about the plane going down. They had taken fire during a long-range bombing run to the shores of Japan.

“We’re hit!” cried the pilot, a laconic Oklahoman named Tommy “Okie” Clarkson who was a couple of years older than Faraday.

“Dammit, must have been that last burst of flak,” Faraday said. “How bad?”

“We’re still in the air, aren’t we?” Okie replied through gritted teeth.

The pilot’s calm reassured Faraday. The age difference made Okie feel like an older brother not only to Faraday but to the rest of the crew.

They were all young enough that a difference of a few years in their ages mattered. After all, the average age of the aircrew was twenty-two. Back home, they would barely have been trusted with the keys to the family car, yet here they were, operating a bomber carrying nearly eight thousand pounds of ordnance.

The plane shuddered once, twice, the controls lurching as if gravity itself was making a grab for them.

“Give me a damage report,” Faraday said over the intercom while the pilot struggled with the controls.

“We’ve got a hole back here the size of a beer keg,” said the rear gunner. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what hit us. How the hell are we still in the air?”

“Hey, this is the good ol’ Blind Date we’re talking about,” Faraday replied. “We’re lucky. Everybody OK?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

In the seat next to Faraday, the pilot remained calm. “Steady, steady,” he said, as if soothing a spooked horse back in Oklahoma instead of a damaged bomber. “You still have three engines, gal. Bring us on home. You can do it.”

At first, the coaxing seemed to work. The Japanese shrapnel might have knocked out an engine, but it was true that they could remain airborne as long as they did not have additional problems.

They had been fortunate in that while the Japanese shell had knocked out an engine, the white-hot flak had not started any fires or severed any fuel lines. He had witnessed more than one plane explode into a fireball over Tokyo, the crew never having a chance to bail out.

Faraday looked out the window at the blue expanse of the sea below, reminded of the fact that the Pacific was a very wide ocean, and they were a very small plane in comparison. It was a long way back to base.

In the sunlight, the ocean was the color of emerald with just a hint of sapphire, exactly the shade of the tumbled bits of glass that beachcombers often found. There were times to admire the dazzling enormity of the Pacific, but this wasn’t one of them. Their aircraft was in trouble.

Not for the first time, Faraday was struck by the fact that the Pacific was also an empty ocean, the surface below them stretching uninterrupted by ships or land. They had lost air speed so that the rest of the squadron had faded from sight. Out here it was just sea and sky. Their plane was merely a speck limping along through that sky.

“Dammit, we’re low on fuel,” the pilot said. He flicked a finger at the glass face of the gauge, as if it might be stuck. The reading did not change. “We must have a leak, after all.”

“Enough to make it home?” Faraday asked.

Okie didn’t reply, which was all the answer that Faraday needed.

Faraday knew their situation wasn’t helped by the fact that bombing runs were made over incredibly long distances, which was why it was vital for American forces to take back the Philippines and reestablish their air bases. This would make missions to the Japanese home islands that much easier — if not exactly a milk run. There were still vast distances involved, crossing nothing but water, but at least the chances would be better of making it home when there was damage or mechanical failure.

Their plane was a B-24 Liberator, a class of plane semi-affectionately known as a “Flying Boxcar.” The plane had been manufactured at a Ford plant in Michigan, where the planes were built at the rate of one every hour. It was a rate of production that the enemy could never hope to match.

Although the B-24 had been the foundation for much of the initial bombing campaign against Japan, it was rapidly being replaced by the more advanced B-29 Superfortress, capable of high-altitude bombing runs beyond the reach of Japanese defenses. Even if a Japanese fighter managed to climb up to meet a squadron of the new bombers, it could not hope to keep up with them.

Blind Date couldn’t have kept up either. Though sturdy and nimble enough when not fully loaded, she was not fast. In all honesty, the B-24 never had been an ideal aircraft and was already showing its age when compared to the B-29.

The controls were so heavy that the plane was difficult to fly, especially at lower airspeeds when fully loaded. Even Okie had been known to bitch about that.

The systems leaked fuel constantly, to the point where they had to open the bomb bay doors periodically just to air out the fumes. It was a problem common to the Liberator. Smoking was out of the question, considering that lighting up might have turned them into a fireball.

Their B-24 had flown several missions and had all the dings to prove it. Faraday liked to joke that she was held together with bubblegum and good luck. He hoped that Blind Date held up one more time.

“C’mon, baby. You can do this,” he whispered, as if the plane could hear him.

Faraday knew that he could hope all that he wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that their current situation remained grim.

Then again, even with the hole in their plane, they were still alive. That was something, at least. Their Flying Boxcar was built to take a lot of punishment.

Faraday felt his nerves quiet as he looked over at the pilot. They were in capable hands. Maybe Okie could pull off yet another miracle. It wouldn’t have been the first time. It helped to have a pilot who was both skilled and lucky — and who had an ample supply of bubblegum.

His thoughts were cut short as an explosion rocked the plane. They had lost another engine.

“That’s not good,” Faraday muttered into the quiet. He could hear the wind beating at the metal skin of the plane, a noise that was usually hidden by the roar of the engines.

“Hold on tight, boys,” announced the pilot, the shrill tone of his voice showing that he was trying to hide his own fear. What scared Faraday even more than the shudder of the plane was the alarmed tone of the pilot’s voice. Normally there wasn’t much that rattled the pilot. “We’re going down!”

“Brace for crash landing!” Faraday shouted into the intercom as the pilot struggled with the controls. He grabbed at his seat belt and made sure it was as tight as possible, then braced himself. They had practiced crash procedures what seemed like a million times, so he did this automatically. But somehow it still didn’t feel real.

Their only bit of luck was that Okie had spotted land. Without a chart in front of them, it was hard to say where the land was, but any version of terra firma was better than the ocean, where they might drift for days in a tiny rubber life raft. While the plane still had some power, Okie got Blind Date pointed toward the mottled green and brown far below.

Faraday felt his heart racing as the plane began to descend rapidly. His ears ached painfully with the sudden change in pressure, and he swallowed to “pop” them, but he could barely keep up, because the plane was losing huge amounts of altitude by the second.

He looked out of the window and could see the ground approaching fast. He closed his eyes, bracing for impact. This was it. Faraday figured that he was about to die, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He would just have to ride it down.

Next to him, he could hear Okie coaxing the plane. “C’mon, now, you can do it. That’s it, here we go—”

Each final second of his life dragged out like an eternity. What did a man think of when he was about to die? He thought of home and family. For a moment he saw his mother’s smiling face. Behind her his brothers and sisters were gathered around the kitchen table, eating pancakes.

Next came a fragment of a happy memory with his father, just the two of them fishing for bluegills in a farm pond, using bits of hot dog for bait. The memory was so strong that Faraday wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of those hot dogs mixed with the odor of fish.

Now why the hell couldn’t I smell those pancakes instead?

He glimpsed the fresh-washed face of his high school girlfriend, smiling up at him as they kissed after a dance. He still carried a letter from her in his pocket, a little piece of home that had kept him company as Blind Date crisscrossed the vast skies.

Faraday was snapped out of his reverie as treetops swatted at the plane, tearing chunks from the fuselage. First one wing was ripped away, then another. The nose of the plane dipped lower and cracked off a tree trunk whose jagged point ripped down the length of the plane like a butcher’s knife gutting a pig. Through the intercom, he heard screaming.

Roiling greenery filled the view out the cockpit windows. It was a sensation not unlike sinking into the sea. All that Faraday could do was close his eyes and hang on.

After what felt like an eternity, the plane gave one final jolt and then came to a stop.

He opened his eyes and looked around. The plane had crashed into a forest. The trees had simultaneously broken their fall and also made it worse by battering the plane to bits.

The sudden stillness of the plane after their bumpy ride down felt strange. Miraculously, he had survived. He quickly checked his arms, legs, and torso. Not so much as a scrape, although he was sure there would be some bruises.

His next worry was fire. It was hard to say how much fuel they still had on board. But again, Liberators were infamous for their fumes. He glanced behind him and saw the shower of sparks from the fried electrical system. Not good. He tried the intercom, but it was dead.

“We need to get out of here,” he said for Okie’s benefit. Faraday started unbuckling his harness.

When there was no response from Okie, he looked over at the pilot. Okie sat slumped in his seat, eyes wide, hands still gripping the controls. But it was a true death grip. The eyes stared sightlessly.

“Okie?”

But there was never going to be a response, not anymore. A broken tree limb had speared Okie in the chest, piercing his body and even running clear through the back of the pilot’s seat. The gory, jagged point of the spear was clearly visible.

The shock of the last few minutes meant that Faraday didn’t even know how to react. He only registered that Okie Clarkson, his big brother, was dead. He finished unbuckling himself from the seat as more sparks popped behind him and filled the cockpit with their ozone stink. He could also smell fumes.

Dear God, don’t let me burn to death.

But before he could abandon the aircraft, he had to check on the rest of the crew. Leaning into the dark fuselage behind him, he called, “Hello? Can anybody hear me?” There was no answer. He thought about entering the fuselage to search for any survivors, but the creaking and groaning of the airplane made him decide against it. He fled out a hole in the plane and climbed down.

Safely on the ground, looking directly above him, he could see that the plane remained suspended in the trees. Overhead, the groaning and shifting of the plane grew louder. Faraday quickly got out from underneath the wreckage — not a moment too soon. What was left of the bomber hit the jungle floor with a resounding boom.

“Hello?” he called. “Anybody?”

Nothing but silence. It was beginning to look as if he might have been the only one who made it out. Much of the fuselage — in fact, most of the rest of the plane — had been pulled apart and scattered through the trees, the crew along with it. Nonetheless, he probed through the wreckage, calling out as he did so.

Much to his surprise and relief, he heard an answering shout. Moments later, he saw a figure limping toward him through the trees and brush. It was Ron “Lucky” Mason, who had also somehow survived the crash landing.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Faraday said, hurrying toward his fellow survivor. He could hear the emotion in his own voice, relief mixed with sadness for all the rest who apparently hadn’t made it, although he still held out hope that some of the others might have survived.

“Hey, they don’t call me Lucky for nothing.”

“You OK?”

“I’ll live.”

Faraday looked Lucky up and down. The young man had a bad gash in his forehead, but otherwise seemed intact. He was swaying a little, however.

“Let’s get you to sit down before you fall down,” Faraday said.

“I won’t argue. Got any water?”

“I’m afraid not. Maybe we can find some in the plane later.”

Lucky looked back at the wreckage. It was none too promising. “Maybe.”

They camped nearby that night, even lighting a small fire, hoping against hope that if there had been any other survivors scattered through the jungle, they would find their way back to the plane’s wreckage.

He wasn’t sure what to do about Okie’s body, still pinned in the pilot’s seat. He doubted that he could face the sight of his dead “big brother” once again. At some point, he and Lucky would have to try to find supplies in the wreckage. He’d also lost his sidearm somewhere, but he wasn’t about to go back to the cockpit to look for it just yet.

Blind Date had carried a crew of eight young men. As the night wore on, it became increasingly evident that he and Lucky were the only survivors. As for their location, he could only guess that they were somewhere in the Philippines, but all that he really knew for certain was that they hadn’t crashed into the sea. As bad as the landing had been, he knew that the bomber would have fared even worse had they taken a swim in the Pacific.

With his back against a tree, Faraday hadn’t realized just how exhausted he really was until he fell into a dreamless sleep. Lucky was already asleep. As it turned out, it would be the only blissful sleep he would have for months to come.

When he opened his eyes, it was morning. Sunlight streamed down through the trees, illuminating the patches of dawn mist. The morning chatter of birds and insects filled the air. The fire had gone out. Lucky was still sleeping. No other survivors had appeared.

But they weren’t alone.

He found himself peering up into the face of a Japanese soldier who was pointing a rifle at him. The dark muzzle of the rifle looked as big as a cannon. Oddly enough, nearby stood another Japanese, holding a bow and arrow.

Faraday realized that he had survived the plane crash, only to become a prisoner of war.