To Kingdom Come (32 page)

Before they parted, Warren again thanked Joe for staying with him after
Patricia
went down. They wished each other good luck, and agreed to get together for a drink back in England.

The troubled American, Henry Krueger, had been a gunner on a B-17 that crashed near Paris. He was the only survivor, and was now subject to severe mood swings. Warren stayed close to him all the way to Perpignan, and the trip passed uneventfully.

At the station, they were met by another underground operative. After exchanging the correct code words, he told Warren and Henry to follow him on foot. They walked several miles south until the buildings of Perpignan gave way to open countryside.

After hiking along a series of country lanes, they came to a small roadside café. Inside, Warren was introduced to the man who would escort them across the Pyrenees. He was a Spanish smuggler and intimately familiar with the trails they had to climb to reach the border. Human cargo was the principal commodity he dealt in, and he was regularly employed by the underground. To Warren, he looked like a man who sold himself to the highest bidder. He hoped the Germans hadn’t raised their bounty on escaping Americans.

As the three men headed up into the foothills, it started to rain. Both Warren and Henry Krueger had winter coats, but they were wearing GI shoes and began having trouble climbing the slick, muddy trails.

The track soon became steeper, in some places heading almost straight up through the ancient rock-strewn canyons. The Spaniard told Warren that they needed to climb all night in order to reach the border the following morning. Crossing in daylight was too risky. Troops randomly patrolled the border, and often shot on sight.

As darkness fell, Henry Krueger began to drop behind, and the other two had to slow down. Henry Krueger was badly out of shape, and Warren’s legs began to cramp up, too. The Spanish guide became increasingly angry at the slowness of their ascent. They were still hours from the pass, he said, and needed to hasten the pace.

The rain turned to icy sleet, and the rock defiles grew even more slick and dangerous. They were still an hour from the top of the pass when Henry Krueger told Warren he couldn’t go on. Dropping to his knees, he began to sob.

The guide had no sympathy for his plight, and told Warren in French that they should leave him behind. Instead, Warren told Henry to climb onto his back. With Henry’s arms around his shoulders, and Warren’s hands under Henry’s thighs, they continued the tortuous ascent.

With brief rest breaks, they finally made it to the top of the pass. After they reached the downward side, Henry told Warren he thought he could walk again. By then, the icy sleet had turned to snow. Night had finally given way to a gray dawn as they reached the bottom of a rock-strewn slope. That was when the guide gave Warren a wolfish smile and pointed ahead of them to a green meadow.

“Espagne,”
he said, baring his yellow-stained front teeth.

Before leaving them to their fate, the Spaniard pointed out a landmark to follow for the next few miles south, and urged Warren to get as far away from the border as possible. The closer they were when they were apprehended, the better the chance they would be handed back to the Germans.

The two Americans continued walking south in the rain into the Spanish countryside. Neither one had eaten since the previous afternoon, and they were ravenously hungry, but Warren refused to stop until they had left the border far behind.

In the afternoon, they reached a small village. An imposing Catholic church dominated the small square. Remembering how courageous Abbé Bonnard had been, Warren led Henry into the church sanctuary. The village priest came forward and asked what they wanted. When Warren identified himself as an American, the priest ordered them to leave.

They were standing outside in the driving rain when Henry Krueger finally broke down completely from the physical and emotional strain of the previous two days. He began sobbing uncontrollably and saying he wanted to go home. Warren tried to assure him that everything would be all right as he helped him along the street. Now desperate for assistance, he stopped at the first house past the village square.

The man who answered the door couldn’t speak French or English, but he gave them a welcoming smile and waved them into his warm kitchen. While his wife made them coffee, the man bowed and left.

The man was back ten minutes later with a squad of Spanish police. The two Americans were immediately arrested and sent by car to the prison in Girona, where they underwent several hours of questioning. The still disturbed Henry Krueger was sent to a mental hospital.

Warren would only give the Spanish authorities his name, rank, and serial number, while repeatedly requesting that the American consulate be notified that he was there. They ignored his request.

Confined to an eight-foot-square cell lined with stone walls and a barred window, he celebrated Christmas Day with a supper of thin soup, bread, and water. After everything he had gone through to get to Spain, he was grateful to have it.

There was a daily exercise period for each prisoner, and the next morning he encountered another man in the prison yard who spoke French. The man said he was there as the result of a false accusation, and told Warren that the Spanish judicial system was totally corrupt.

When Warren told him he was an escaped American officer, the man told him it would be necessary for the American consulate to bid for his freedom. The Germans would also bid, he said. Warren would go to the highest bidder.

The conversation left him confused. If that was true, why wouldn’t the Spanish authorities have alerted the American consul that he was there? They couldn’t make a bid if they didn’t know he was in Spain.

The following day he was gazing out his second-floor cell window when a young man came walking up the alley from the boulevard. The first thing Warren noticed about him was that he was wearing American GI shoes, just like his own. Warren opened the casement window inside the bars and called down to the man, who immediately stopped.

“If you’re an American, please tell our consulate that they are holding an escaped American pilot here,” he shouted in English.

The man said nothing. A moment later, he was gone.

Maybe it was coincidence, but the following day he was released to the custody of an American military attaché at the United States consulate. He was driven to Barcelona, where he was debriefed for several days by an American intelligence officer who wanted to know everything about his adventures with the underground after he had been shot down.

After completing his debriefing, Warren was told that it would be a few weeks before passage could be arranged for him to return to England and then the United States. Warren had only one request. He asked to be provided with a Spanish-English dictionary. He thought three weeks might be enough time for him to become reasonably fluent in Spanish.

The Telegram

Friday, 31 December 1943
Scarsdale, New York
Braxton “Betsy” Wilken

T
he telegram from the War Department had arrived in November. It was from the adjutant general of the U.S. Army Air Forces. She knew what it would say before she opened the envelope.

DEAR MRS. WILKEN,

IT IS WITH PROFOUND REGRET THAT I MUST CONFIRM THE DEATH OF YOUR HUSBAND, LIEUTENANT RAY T. WILKEN, 0-795,161, WHO HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION. INFORMATION HAS BEEN RECEIVED FROM THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS THAT HE WAS KILLED IN ACTION ON 6 SEPTEMBER 1943. I REALIZE THE BURDEN OF ANXIETY THAT HAS BEEN YOURS SINCE HE WAS FIRST REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION AND DEEPLY REGRET THE SORROW THIS LATER REPORT BRINGS YOU. MAY THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HE MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE IN DEFENSE OF HIS HOME AND COUNTRY BE A SOURCE OF SUSTAINING COMFORT. I EXTEND TO YOU MY DEEP SYMPATHY. SINCERELY YOURS, J.A. ULIO, MAJOR GENERAL

From the very beginning, Braxton knew just how close to death he always was, even during training. When Ted was going through his B-17 trials, she and the other wives would gather near the control tower to watch their husbands bring the big Fortresses home. One afternoon, she had watched a B-17 come in to land with what seemed like a steeper approach than normal. When the plane hit the ground, it blew up, killing everyone aboard.

She could remember the words she had written to Ted’s mother, Helen, soon afterward:

I guess war has made us a very hardened and practical lot. We saw that when Mil Stevens was killed at George Field. You learn to be thrifty with your emotions. Teddy has a dangerous job to do and it must not be cluttered with emotions. That’s the hardest thing all of us Air Corps families have had to learn—to accept—not to question.... It’s an awful easy thing to die, but sometimes to live and do it gracefully is the seemingly impossible thing.

Shortly after receiving the formal confirmation of his death from the War Department, she wrote a letter to David Parry, another B-17 pilot in England and a good friend of Ted’s. David and his wife, Edith, had gone through training with Ted and Braxton. After Ted went missing, David had written her to say that soon after the birth of Kathy, Ted had proudly brought the photograph of Braxton and the baby over to his quarters in Framingham, and they had shared a celebratory toast to his new family.

Now David was writing back.

Dear Betsy,

Edith has already written that she has seen you and that you have accepted the news of Ted’s death with dignity and courage. I’m glad, not only for your sake but for Ted’s, who would be the first to make a crack about widow’s weeds if ever you should wear them. It’s curious how tenuous in wartime that line of demarcation becomes that separates the quick from the dead. It’s sometimes hard to remember just who in the group has gone down and who has missed breakfast for a couple of mornings. I can’t offer you the solemn conventional condolences because I know Ted would laugh at me. I wonder if you feel the same way.

Two crews finished up the other day. I still have three to go, which is like saying that if the black comes up three more times at Roulette I’ll break the bank. If I do get back, I am looking forward more than almost anything to seeing you again and saying some of the things I can’t now. The three of us will go somewhere and talk about the fun the four of us had, and shall always have, and we shall have a drink for Ted. Take good care of Kathy. Love, David

There were no guarantees in life or love. Her principal regrets were that they would never make more babies together, never grow old together, and she would never have the chance to know what he would have become if he had lived.

In early December, Braxton moved back to Scarsdale. She had grown up there. Her friends were there. She rented a small furnished apartment near the Bronx River and moved in at the start of the New Year.

Her closest friend was Jane Eaglesham. They had gone to school together. Jane had been one of the prettiest girls in their class, but she had been in a terrible automobile accident and her face was horribly disfigured. Aside from Braxton, her school friends no longer wanted to see her.

In the wake of Ted’s death, they began spending a lot of time together. One of Braxton’s new missions in life was to see that Jane had dates like she used to in college before the accident.

Living alone with Kathy in the little apartment gave her a lot of time to think about both the past and the future. She and Ted had shared so many interests. In addition to being lovers, they were best friends. He had been a whole man, and he had loved her.

She had admired so much about him, his intelligence, his natural leadership, his sense of the nonsense of life, and his generosity to anyone in need. If she were ever repaid the money he had lent to fellow officers and crewmen in their training days, it would pay for Kathy’s college education.

At one point, Braxton remembered their last serious conversation on the night before he left. Ted had given her his thoughts on the things she needed to do if he was killed. He hadn’t dwelled on it, but one meaning was clear. If anything happened to him, he hoped she would find someone else.

Get on with it, she thought as the days continued to pass. You will not be a moaning war widow. You still have a life to live the best way you know how. The New Year is at hand. You will find a new reason to live.

On the Run

Friday, 21 January 1944
Douarnenez, France
Second Lieutenant Jimmy Armstrong

H
e had survived enough adventures to last a lifetime.

There had been many times over the four months he had been on the run when Jimmy was sure he was about to be captured, and only a twist of fate had saved him from a prisoner-of-war camp, or worse.

He had arrived in Paris on the night of September 20, exactly two weeks after
Yankee Raider
had gone down. After spending two days at the tiny apartment of the medical intern who had brought him to the city, he was turned over to two young Parisians named Maurice and George. They picked him up in a wood-burning flatbed truck and transported him across Paris to the suburb of Drancy.

Maurice was the bartender of a café, and he celebrated Jimmy’s arrival by pouring out three full glasses of cognac. He and George then demonstrated how it should be quaffed in one long swallow. The harsh liquor brought tears to the twenty-one-year-old’s eyes, which engendered a good deal of laughter from the Frenchmen.

George brought out a pistol from under his belt, along with a wad of ration tickets he had stolen the night before from a government office. The coupons helped to supply the needs of their resistance cell.

Maurice’s girlfriend, Monique, arrived shortly afterward and prepared Jimmy’s dinner. Later that night, she escorted him upstairs to the room he would be sharing with her and Maurice.