“This is Corporal Desonivich, Colonel Yamato.”
“What do we have, Corporal?” Jerry asked.
“Do you wish a private headset, Colonel?”
“Did they say this was classified?”
“Not yet.”
“Then put it on speaker and give me the microphone.”
The corporal complied.
“Tanana, this is Yamato at Delta, over.”
“Jerry, this is General Grigorievich. Is your plane operable?”
“Of course, General.”
“Have it loaded with machine gun rounds and antipersonnel rockets.”
Jerry nodded at Sergeant Severin who immediately picked up a phone and started talking.
“What’s going on, General?”
“Colonel Buhrman and Lieutenant Colonel Smolst are in a tight spot. They need a fighter over Nowitna as soon as we can get one there.”
“Once I’m in the air, I can be there in under an hour.”
“I wish I could send someone else, Jerry. Since the 24th Attack Squadron returned to California, you’re our only fighter pilot at the moment. We need to address that lack as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir, I agree wholeheartedly.”
“Once you’re in the air, we’ll give you coordinates and updates.”
“Yes, General. Delta out.”
“Thanks, Corporal,” he shouted over his shoulder as he dashed out of the room. “Sergeant Severin, get me a car!”
116
Nowitna, Provisional State of Doyon, Alaska Republik
“They’re sending who?” Lieutenant Colonel Smolst asked.
“Yamato, that kid from the 117th who got shot down over Rainbow Valley while my guys were jumping on the Battle of Chena, where you guys were getting your asses kicked.”
“I was wounded in that battle, Colonel Buhrman, otherwise you would have a much nicer reception.” Smolst glanced out the window. “We’re losing our light. If he doesn’t get here damn soon, he’ll be fighting in the dark.”
“Not much I can do about that, Heinrich.”
“Colonel, we’ve got an incoming message.” Easthouse switched on the speaker.
“This is Yamato calling Field Fox One, do you read me? Over.”
Buhrman grabbed the radio microphone. “Colonel Yamato, this is Colonel Buhrman. Nice to hear your voice.”
“Happy to help, Colonel. Where do you want the delivery?”
Colonel Buhrman quickly described the area. “They’re in the brush and tree line from the north to the west. You flush ’em and we’ll pick off what you don’t get.”
“Roger that, be there in five minutes. Yamato out.”
117
On the edge of Nowitna
“I’m just about frozen solid, Major.”
“Quit whining, N’go. It’s going to be dark in less than an hour; then we get to take ’em out.”
“At l-least we’ll be moving. Do you hear an engine?”
“No, I—oh damn, it’s a plane!”
“In this weather?”
“It’s a fighter, you dumb bastard!” Riordan shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here right now!”
Stiffened with cold they scrambled to their feet and stumbled deeper into the tree line. The engine noise rose to a roar and six lines of bullets raced past them, blowing trees and frozen tundra apart. Explosions burst behind them as the aircraft streaked over them.
Tears of rage ran down Riordan’s face. He stopped beside an icy birch whose trunk was the size of his thigh and looked back at the carnage. The aircraft spat rockets and machine gun fire at the northern sector where most of his men lay waiting.
He saw three men leap to their feet to evacuate but they pitched forward after a few steps. The people in Nowitna were picking them off.
“That damned plane!” Riordan pulled one of his mercury tips out, chambered it, and leaned against a tree for support. The plane was coming back for another run over his old position and it was coming fast.
Riordan took aim through his scope and as soon as the crosshairs centered on the cockpit, he fired.
118
Over Nowitna
Jerry had enough ammo to make one more strafing run and then he would have to leave. The arctic afternoon was fading fast and he didn’t want to fly back in the dark. He bore down toward the first area he had hit, turned to the right a few degrees, and squeezed the trigger button.
Something hit the front of the plane and oil streamed out the side of the fuselage. The engine stuttered, roared full blast and then died.
I’ve been shot down again?
He turned away from the forest and aimed for the frozen Yukon. Air shrieked past and he held his microphone button with one hand and the stick with the other.
“Mayday! This is Yamato; I’m hit and going down over the Yukon near Nowitna. Mayday! Mayday!”
The P-61 lost speed and he had to hold the stick with both hands, willing it to stay in the air. He cleared the trees along the river by a few meters and felt a wave of relief wash over him. He stared at the frozen surface of the river and fear walked up his spine with cat claws.
The river wasn’t smooth like a frozen pond. It had ridges, bumps, hummocks, and chunks of ice that looked like boulders. And he was out of time.
“This is going to get ugly,” he muttered.
He suddenly remembered he had two wing tanks nearly full of fuel that would hit first. And explode. He hit the switch and they impacted the river within seconds.
The explosions gave the plane a few feet of lift and he saw the trail running through the smoothest portion of that part of the river. He edged toward it, not wanting the bird to catch a wing and cartwheel—he couldn’t survive that. He was moving so fast and there just wasn’t any more time.
The icy river reached up and grabbed the plane; the frozen propeller immediately bent back under the nose and the plane bellied in, straight down the narrow trail. For an insane moment he worried about hitting a dog sled. The trail went through a cut in what looked like a hill of ice and he knew that’s where it would all stop.
Both wings hit at the same time and ripped off the aircraft with shrieks of tearing metal. The fuselage shot through the cut, peeling aluminum off the sides of the bird and chunks of ice out of the abrupt wall on either side. The wreck slid to a stop and a gust of wind howled over it, throwing snow crystals like frozen sand.
“I’m still alive!” Jerry shouted. He keyed his radio. “Can anyone hear me? This is Yamato, can anyone hear me?”
The wind moaned again as it assaulted the plane. The radio was dead. He was the only thing out here that wasn’t.
He had to figure out if staying inside the aluminum fuselage would be suicide. The aircraft had no insulation worthy of the conditions Jerry now faced and the inside would actually become colder than the outside. In a matter of hours the shredded fuselage would become an icy tomb, but it might offer protection from the incessant arctic wind.
“Sure glad I brought my cold weather gear!” he said loudly. He realized that he was afraid and needed to get himself steadied before doing anything at all.
“I wasn’t afraid the last time,” he said to the wind buffeting the wreck. “Why am I this time?”
Because last time you didn’t have anything other than your life to lose—now you’ve got Magda, maybe.
He nodded. That was it. Now he really had the promise of a life, and he wanted to enjoy a lot more of it. He unfastened the parachute harness, reflecting that he was glad he hadn’t had enough time to use it—God knows where he would be by now.
What to do? Every survival manual he had ever read said to stay with the aircraft if possible. But would that be wise here?