War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 163

Chapter 18

Mid-August 1944

T

om Westlake, British RAF pilot, saw the flaming city of Warsaw appear in front of him. He sucked in a breath, despite the briefing that had told him what to expect. Row upon row of buildings stood in flames, shooting smoke high up into the sky. The dark clouds of smoke glowed in ghostly orange and yellow tones as they were illuminated from below. It wouldn’t be difficult to find the designated drop locations, with the night sky glowing as bright as day.

“What a shame,” he murmured to himself, and scanned the sky for enemy aircraft. Despite her battered condition the Luftwaffe still posed a serious threat, and he had no intention of reliving his worst nightmare.

“Get ready for the drop,” he instructed his bombardier and took his Lancaster down to five hundred feet. Then he saw it. A dark field amidst the blazing fires, marked with torches in the form of a “T”.

That must be the cemetery

. It struck him as ironic to drop the weapons onto people who were already dead. But there was neither time nor room for piety in this war.

He’d volunteered to fly the delicate missions from airfields in Italy to provide the Home Army with weapons and ammunition to continue their uprising. It was a nice change to drop things the recipients actually cared for and not just the deadly bombs he usually delivered. Tom shuddered. Ever since his involuntary stay in Berlin, he’d hated this part of his job. It was a necessary evil to win the war, but at what cost?

Tom looked out the window and spoke into his headset “Now!” Flying a slow turn, he saw the telltale glow of twelve parachutes as they carried the canisters crammed with light machine guns, ammunition, grenades, radio equipment, food and medical supplies earthward.

“I sure hope the Poles capture that gear and not the Germans. I mean, it would be crummy to be killed with one of our own weapons,” Tom murmured.

“And just how would we be getting shot? They’d need anti-aircraft guns to get us,” the bombardier said.

“Accidents happen.” Tom shrugged, taking the aircraft up to their travel altitude and turning southward to Italy. Gunfire flashed on the ground and a shiver ran down his spine. Things would be so much easier if Uncle Joe, as the Allies called Stalin, had allowed them to land and refuel their aircraft on one of the nearby Russian airfields. But no, that awful man was stubborn as a mule. He not only forced them to fly the airdrops from Allied bases in Italy, drastically reducing the payload they could carry, but he also kept several divisions of the Red Army less than twenty miles from Warsaw without lifting a single finger.

Apparently, Churchill personally had sent a message to Stalin, begging him to help the Polish, or at least allow the English to help them. But Uncle Joe’s response had been terse: basically, blaming the Poles for the hopeless situation they’d maneuvered themselves into by not aligning their actions with the Soviet High Command first. He claimed that the Soviet government didn’t want to get involved in this “reckless and terrible adventure” for fear of encouraging “adventuristic actions which might later be turned against the Soviet Union.”

Tom snorted. He didn’t believe that bullshit for one second. Neither did his Polish air force colleagues, adamant in their verdict that Stalin wasn’t one whit better than Hitler, he’d just been more cautious in hiding his atrocious deeds. Most every one of Tom’s Polish colleagues had one or more family members on an extended trip to Siberia, courtesy of Uncle Joe.

When the aircraft reached travel altitude, Tom leaned back in his seat. Despite the odd Luftwaffe night-fighter from the training center at Cracow scouring the skies, he didn’t expect much trouble.

His mind flashed back to a time more than a year ago: he’d been delivering propaganda leaflets over Hamburg when it happened. Anti-aircraft flak had hit him, and he’d had to bail out. What followed had been both his worst nightmare and his most wonderful time.

Ursula

. She’d stolen his heart with her personality and kindness. He’d fallen head over heels in love with her and it had killed him to leave her when the time came. A smile spread across his face and a deep sigh escaped his throat.

“Hey, you fine?”

Tom shook his head and forced himself back to the present. “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s hurry home and get some shut-eye before the next sortie tonight.”

The young man gave him a funny look. “Man, I know something happened while you were in Berlin. We all do. But you never talk about it…”

“And I’m not going to start now. I was shot down. Captured. Escaped. Returned to Britain and into the cockpit. End of story.”

“You can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, but I just watched you fade away and the look on your face…you seemed happy. Happier than anyone fighting in this infernal war has a right to be.”

Tom didn’t respond, but the other man’s words rolled around in his head. He had been happy with Ursula during the short time they had spent together. Happier than ever before in his life. And he would be again…after the war. He vowed to return and find her. Make her his wife.