“Jumping out an airplane sounds like a very clever way to commit suicide,” Schulte said. “But it beats marching.”
Steiner broke off a piece of the last of his Scho-Ka-Kola and passed it on. Schulte took one, then Weber, then Muller. The chocolate had a strong bittersweet flavor and packed a wallop of caffeine from the cocoa and kola nut mix.
“Come on, let’s go already,” Animal said while he chewed.
Leutnant Reiser marched up to them wearing a fierce smile. “Ready for glory, Fallschirmjäger?”
“Jawohl, Herr Leutnant!” they shouted dutifully.
“Herr Leutnant, what happens after?” Muller said.
“After what, jäger?”
“After we destroy the undead. Endsieg.” Final victory. “What happens then?”
“We all get a pony,” Reiser said. “Parachute infantry, enter your aircraft!”
The Fallschirmjäger started forward at a slow march under the weight of their kit, singing “Auf Kreta, Im Sturm, und Im Regen,” a favorite among the paras.
On Crete, while on guard duty in storm and rain, a paratrooper dreams of home, where his girl laughs…
“Give ’em hell, Krauts!” an American shouted from one of the hangars. “Berlin or bust!”
“Ja, ja,” Schulte said with his usual sarcasm. “Onward to glory.”
One by one, the Fallschirmjäger stuck their static-line parachute hooks between their teeth and heaved themselves onto the aircraft. The stick of paratroopers filled the plane, sitting knee to knee.
“Interesting question, what comes next,” the sniper told Muller.
“It interests me.”
“Interesting in that you actually think we’re going to survive this.”
“Didn’t you ever dream what it’d be like to go home?” Muller thought about it all the time. Now he was dreading what he’d find when he got there.
“Right now, I’m dreaming about whether this Ami parachute will open and whether I’ll break an ankle on my fall.”
Muller glanced at Schulte’s parachute with open envy. He’d been issued a German parachute. He wondered where it had come from, how old it was.
“‘Your honor lies in victory or death,’” Animal quoted from the Führer’s Ten Commandments to the Fallschirmjäger. “Not bustled ankles.”
“‘Agile as a greyhound, tough as leather, hard as Krupp steel, you will be the embodiment of a German warrior,’” Weber called out, laughing.
“‘Men act, women chatter; chatter will bring you to the grave,’” said Schulte.
“Berlin or bust,” Steiner said.
The Skytrooper bounced along the runway. Gravity pushed against the paratroopers’ bowels as the plane lunged into the air.
In minutes, the plane reached cruising altitude over the Strait of Dover. All the planes fell into formation and banked onto an oh-two-oh bearing toward the North Sea. Muller looked out the window and saw moonlight glimmer off the Air Force star painted on the nearest transport plane. The propeller hum purred through his spine, filled his chest, and numbed his brain.
Hurry up and wait. Two hours until Berlin.
There was little talking. It was past the time for pep talks by the officers, too late for strategy and tactics, too meditative for their usual singing. And Schulte was right, Muller’s mind had no room for thoughts other than a safe landing. Everybody he knew back in Berlin might be dead and the world might be ending, but all he cared about right now was safely getting his feet on the ground. The men chain-smoked and either looked inward or bargained with their god.
After two hours, Muller checked his watch. Berlin should be below him now, though the ground was an endless sea of black and gray. The planes veered into a circular run. They’d reached the city but couldn’t find the drop zone. The beacon drew the planes within a few miles; the lights on the ground zeroed them in.
Muller looked down and saw no lights. Which meant they were off course or the Pathfinders hadn’t completed their mission.
“God in Heaven,” Reiser swore and rose from his seat. He shambled to the cockpit to scream at the American pilots. “Can’t you people fly a simple plane?”
Muller jerked as flashes of light popped outside the window. Lightning?
No. Tracers.
A dogfight in the sky.
Berlin was still defended by interceptors.
A German airplane screamed out of the dark. A Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter, good at night fighting. Muller’s heart swelled with a moment of idiotic pride. Opening up with its big machine-guns, the plane raked the C-53 traveling on the port side of Muller’s. One of the engines exploded in a fireball. Half the wing spun away as the plane plunged toward the ground streaming smoke.
Muller didn’t see it hit the ground.
Tracers zipped up from Berlin into the distant sky. The air shook with flak bursts.
The plane banked again, hurling the lieutenant against the bulkhead. “Get us over the drop zone or I’ll shoot you in the head!”
Muller wanted to call out that the Americans probably didn’t speak German in the hopes the lieutenant wouldn’t actually shoot them, but the plane banked hard again as it engaged in evasive maneuvers. The cabin lit up as a fighter plane disintegrated in flames outside the window. Shards of fuselage ricocheted off the plane’s hull.
Muller started praying. Immediately, something dark slammed into the window next to him and cracked it, like an answer from God.
The Skytrooper screamed now just 150 meters over the ground, traveling at a drop speed of 130 kilometers per hour. Farmland flashed past the window while fighter planes dogged it out above, Messerschmitts against Mustangs fitted with external fuel tanks that had allowed them to go all the way to Berlin.
The red light flashed on. Six minutes until the jump.
“On your feet, pig-dogs,” Reiser ordered. “Prepare and hook up!”
The Fallschirmjäger stood heavily, laden with parachutes and gear. They hooked their static lines to the anchor cable suspended across the airplane’s length.
“Equipment check!”
Each paratrooper checked the parachute of the man in front of him and sounded off.
“Any day now,” Schulte said.
The light flashed green. The klaxon blared.
“Los!” Reiser screamed. “Gehen, gehen!” Come on, go, go!
The plane shuddered. The weapons containers were dropping from the wings like 100-kilogram bombs. The line moved forward as First Squad jumped out of the plane, followed by Sergeant Wolff, Weber, Beck, Steiner, Animal, Schulte—
Then Muller stood in the doorway, feet braced wide on the ledge, gloved hands gripping the rails, facing the howling void.
“Gehen!” The lieutenant held his Luger and tapped it against his thigh in warning.
Muller bent his knees and flung himself into the wind.
The cold air smacked him hard. His stomach seemed to slam into his throat. He was falling, spread-eagled, the ground swimming in his tearing eyes. The static line deployed the parachute. The ground rushed up at him at dizzying speed. He felt a tug, a sudden resistance to gravity, as the ’chute fully deployed.
Gasping for breath, he studied the ground. They’d taught him to steer but with a German parachute he had to do it the Fallschirmjäger way, jerking and flapping his arms like an ungainly bird never designed for flight. Finally, he had himself pointed downwind, falling at five meters per second. He was going to land in a snowy plot of farmland.