Blue Skies Tomorrow (36 page)

Ray’s chest expanded.
Ponton?
Did that mean
pontoon
? Regardless, the Americans were crossing the Rhine, the most German of rivers. But the Rhine lay a good hundred miles to the west. He hardened his face again.

The officers stopped and saluted a young pilot—very young. “
Hallo,
Reinhardt. Are you going to the film?”

Ray stopped and dug around in his breast pocket as if he were a smoker in search of cigarettes.

Reinhardt stood tall under his stiff salute. “
Ja.
Then I can fly the Schwalbe.”

A training film for the Me 262? Ray’s lips tingled. He spun and followed the teenage pilot at a distance. Every day the idea of commandeering a plane grew in his head, fed by hunger, sickness, and weakness. The night before, he’d eaten his last potato. Now the Lord had delivered this film into his hands.

Ray paused. Would he be allowed in? They’d check identification, and Johannes Gottlieb wouldn’t be on the list. Or worse, someone would know Johannes, and it would all be over.

He huffed away the thought and forged ahead. If someone checked Reinhardt’s papers, Ray would walk away.

Reinhardt met some buddies, and they jostled each other like American boys, except these men were training to shoot down American boys.

They approached a building, where a guard stood at the door, and Ray sighed and veered to the side. But the guard let the pilots in with a lazy salute. Did the guard know them? Or would someone inside check identification?

Ray marched forward. If they asked, he’d poke in his pockets, look horrified not to find his papers, and leave. The Lord had given him the opportunity, and he had to seize it.

At the threshold, his heartbeat accelerated. The guard’s gaze rolled over the shoulder boards of Ray’s overcoat, golden yellow with silver wire stripes and a single silver star for Johannes’s first lieutenant’s rank. The guard’s arm rose like a drawbridge.

Ray’s heartbeat eased down a notch, and he saluted and entered the building.

No check-in table. No man with a clipboard. Just a few dozen chairs facing a screen flanked by portraits of Hitler and Goering. Before he could lose courage, Ray picked an empty row and sat next to the wall behind a large, dark-haired boy who would shield Ray well.

He crossed his arms over his concave chest and put on his least friendly look.

The men’s conversation rose through a haze of pungent cigarette and pipe smoke, but not with the nervous exuberance Ray had seen in his trainees in Texas. A palpable mood of fatalism pressed on the room. From Ray’s perspective, Luftwaffe losses seemed high, and airmen would know better than the average German about Allied progress.

These boys were so young, teenagers all of them. How many would survive the month, much less the war? How many knew the saving grace of Jesus Christ?

Ray clenched his stick arms. If only he could tell them. But one full sentence from his mouth would label him a spy and wouldn’t lead anyone to the Lord.

An officer strode down the center aisle, a captain, and the trainees sprang to their feet, salutes angled high. Ray joined them, and he had a strange sensation of being in a Nazi newsreel.

When the captain told them to be seated, Ray centered his face behind the head of the man in front of him. Thank goodness, the captain gave a quick introduction, and the film rolled.

He strained to tune his ears to the voices in the film. They spoke quickly and used unfamiliar words, though his translation of the manual had expanded his vocabulary.

The film instructor stood on the wing of the plane and showed the student the equipment in the cockpit, then showed him how to start the engines, a complex process. The throttles had to be pushed forward very slowly—that wasn’t in the manual—and fuel was injected using push buttons on the sides of the throttle handles.

Ray drank it in, warm and invigorating as coffee. He could do it. He could fly one of these planes. In the chaos of a scramble, he could do it.

He had to try. Sure, he might be caught or die in a fiery crash, but if he stayed, he’d also die. He could be discovered, or shot by the Allies as he tried to surrender, or keep dying this long death of starvation. He’d rather die in an effort to help his country.

Besides, he was already dead to Helen and his family. They had mourned him and were moving on with their lives, which made his heart feel as hollow as his stomach.

Yet out of the hollowness unfurled a flag of liberation. As a dead man, he was free to do things he’d never considered when alive.

In the film, the student hopped out of the plane, and he and his instructor walked into the distance, using the pilot’s universal language of swooping arm motions.

The captain dismissed the class, and Ray joined the throng, careful to keep his head down.

When he stepped outside, an air raid siren pierced the air.

A cry rang out among the trainees, and they took off running. Ray ran too, but not with the crowd. They’d seek shelter since they weren’t ready to scramble yet.

Neither was Ray. He needed the flight jacket and helmet, the manual, and a bit more courage. But the air raid gave him a chance to commit his most ambitious sabotage plan.

He ran for the edge of the airfield where a fuel tanker stood. When it had arrived the day before, the men greeted it like children cheering Santa in the Christmas parade. Fuel was the Nazi’s main weakness, and knocking out one tanker would be like knocking out dozens of jets. If it blew up in an air raid, no one would suspect sabotage.

A Rolls-Royce Merlin engine throbbed to the north, and the base’s antiaircraft guns opened in ear-numbing booms.

Ray scanned the field, but no one looked his way. Despite his shaky hands, he pulled Johannes’s pistol from the holster and leveled it at the tanker.

A flash of silver, and a P-51 Mustang streaked past, popping destruction with six .50 caliber machine guns.

Ray fired a shot. He flung himself to the ground, curled up with his back to the tanker.

No explosion.

He groaned and sat up. Swell, he’d missed.

In the distance, smoke rose from a shot-up Me 262. A glimmer caught Ray’s eye, a golden line dripping from the tanker.

He frowned and walked over. A ragged hole cut into the tanker, fuel streamed out, and Ray coughed from the fumes. His shot hit square in the middle, a great shot. So why didn’t it blow up? It worked in the movies.

He sighed. He had matches, but he could toss one only a few feet. That would be the death of him. If only he could light a fuse. He glanced around and spotted a stack of oil drums and gas cans.

Someone cried out, and he snapped up his gaze. People pointed north, not at Ray, and ran away. To the north, three whirling propellers approached.

If he didn’t act fast, he’d lose his chance. He grabbed a gas can and poured a trail leading out from the puddle under the tanker.

He tossed the gas can under the tanker and pulled out his matchbox. Adrenaline locked his fingers. He struck the match over and over, but it didn’t light.

The first Mustang charged down the field and left another jet in a mangled heap.

Ray breathed out a prayer and struck the match again. A spark, and it leaped to life. He touched the match to the trail of fuel.

Orange fire raced toward the tanker. Ray sprinted in the other direction, his weakened legs threatening to crumple.

Behind him, two P-51s roared past. Bullets hit a staccato beat on the ground.

A wall of heat and sound slammed into him, threw him to his face on the tarmac. He wrapped his arms around his head. A searing hurricane blasted over.

Then it was gone.

Ray felt the back of his head. Still had his hair, even his hat. He pushed himself up.

The tanker had been replaced by a raging inferno, a dragon belching out a tower of flame and black smoke.

Ray laughed. What would Helen think? He hadn’t slain a dragon. He’d created one.

36

Port Chicago
Wednesday, March 21, 1945

“Mutiny?” the brochure read. “The real story of how the Navy branded 50 fear-shocked sailors as mutineers.”

Helen handed the pamphlet back to Esther. “They did a nice job. This will open a lot of eyes.”

“That’s the NAACP’s plan.” Esther took a seat across from Helen’s desk. “When Thurgood Marshall files the appeal in Washington, the Legal Defense and Educational Fund plans to distribute these, circulate petitions, the works.”

Helen scraped a pile of papers from her desk. “Carver must be proud of you.”

Esther shrugged one shoulder. “He’s glad I’m occupied. When I think of my husband in a prison cell—well, I have to do something. I can’t sit still.”

Helen opened the file cabinet. “Then you won’t mind if I file while we chat.”

“I’d hardly expect you to sit still either.”

“Lieutenant Llewellyn will be back any minute.” She slipped a paper into the
W
section. “He’ll help you track down those documents.”

“It’s so frustrating. Carver’s documents should be at the Judge Advocate General’s office in DC after the lieutenant filed his individual appeal in December. But the staff has been less than helpful, and Mr. Marshall wants to file the group appeal April 3.”

“Bureaucratic stonewalling coupled with discrimination. You’ll need extra prayer to break down that barrier.” Only one paper under
Y
, none under 
Z
.

“With God and the lieutenant on our side, I know we’ll prevail. What a blessing that man is to us. To you as well.” She tossed out the words with a playful lilt.

Helen smiled over her shoulder. “Yes, he is.”

“He’s the best sort of man. He’ll treat you and your boy right.”

“He already has.” Vic had rented a sweet little bungalow on Fifth Street and was paying for Helen to furnish it. Each piece of furniture, each yard of cloth for curtains, each dish made his face glow.

In thirty-seven days she would leave the Carlisle home and come under the protection of a man who adored her, a man she was growing increasingly fond of. The role of Mrs. Victor Llewellyn would be an easy role after all.

The file folders in the back slouched under the forward files. Helen boosted them up. The one in the rear read “St. Jude.”

“Oh brother.” Helen plucked it out. Vic had a brilliant legal mind but he had no business filing.

The door swung open. “Hello, sweet—” Vic stopped short. “Oh, hello, Esther. I didn’t expect you.”

She offered her hand and a smile. “Can’t a lady visit a dear old friend?”

He shook her hand and grinned. “Old? I feel younger every day.” He winked at Helen.

She smiled, rolled her eyes, and glanced at the folder. St. Jude? Unusual. She couldn’t remember a client with that name.

“I hope you can help us untangle the red tape tying up Carver’s documents in DC.”

“I’ll do what I can, but no promises.” Vic entered his office and set down his briefcase. “Marshall may have taken up a lost cause.”

“I disagree,” Esther said. “Any logical person looking at the facts can see the injustice.”

“Logic has nothing to do with this.” Vic leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “It took me long enough, but now I see this case was never about justice but about politics. You’ll never sway the Navy. After race riots in Detroit, Mobile, Harlem, LA—the Navy decided to crack down on the Port Chicago Boys. Justice? They trampled it for the sake of peace.”

“They made their point.” Esther drew herself taller. “Now on the appeal, justice can be done.”

“And admit they were wrong in time of war?” Vic swung his head heavily. “Never. Just last month the Army convicted seventy-five colored troops in that Engineer Battalion on Oahu for refusal to work—also a mutiny conviction. We won’t see any movement until after the armistice. The way things are going in the Pacific, that could be years.”

Helen sighed and fanned open the folder. Wait. She’d seen these papers before—the appeals brief for George Washington Carver Jones, the medical forms, everything.

“Perhaps,” Esther said. “But we’re fighting for more than these fifty innocent men, and we’re fighting within the system, not with riots. That’s why I need the documents.”

“These documents?” Helen laughed at the perfect timing and showed the file to Vic. “This is what she needs, right?”

“Oh. Right.”

“You found them? Praise the Lord.” Esther laughed and removed the papers from the folder. “I’ll mail these tomorrow. But I thought—weren’t they supposed to be in Washington?”

“Um, forgot about that.” Vic rubbed the back of his neck. “When they refused to hear the appeal, they returned the paperwork. Forgot all about that.”

Helen arched an eyebrow at him. “And you filed them under—”

He burst out in a laugh. “You know me—barely know my alphabet. That’s why I hired you.” He settled a kiss on her cheek. “By the way, I forgot to mail this letter at the Post Exchange. Would you mind?”

She took the envelope. “Not at all. I’ll walk Esther out.”

Esther hugged the papers to her chest as they left the building. “The Lord guided your hand today, didn’t he?”

Helen laughed. “Only God could figure out Vic’s filing system. I should lock the man out of his own files.”

“He needs you to keep him in line.” She turned for the depot. “I’ll see you in town. Thanks again for introducing me to the Novaks. Wonderful people.”

“They are.” Her jaw ached at the thought of the most wonderful man she’d ever known, but she headed on to the PX and on with her life. Even if Ray had survived, he wouldn’t have returned her love, knowing her as he did. She still would have ended up with Vic.

It was meant to be. And it was necessary, not just for Helen and Jay-Jay, but for Vic too. His incompetence warmed her. At least she’d contribute more than her body and housekeeping to the marriage.

She passed a seaman hauling a trash can outside. Honestly, how did Carver’s papers end up under St. Jude, and how did St. Jude end up under
Z
? “St. Jude?”

“You sick, ma’am?”