Hell From Heaven

She takes a photograph of the flak – even as fragments rattle against the side of the B17.  The aeroplane judders as it passes though the ruptured air, the left wing momentarily losing lift, and the American bomber lurches to port.  As the pilot, Patrick Steiner, recovers stability, Judy Timberforce – releasing her grip of one of the fuselage’s curving, ribbed struts – turns to Edison Wallpen, the burly Wisconsin starboard waist gunner, and tugs at her flak jacket with both hands.  It is a heavy item of protection that she has been griping about ever since they took off.

    “I still don’t think it’s my style,” she shouts above the noise of the wind rushing past the aeroplane and the rectangular gun apertures.  “But I’m getting to like it.”

    “Shame it doesn’t cover your mouth,” Wallpen bellows, as he regains his footing and peers out through his allotted opening of the fuselage.  He turns momentarily to glare at her.

    “Ma’am,” he adds, nodding and saluting her with a tap of his index finger to his temple, before continuing his vigilant scanning of the skies.  The aeroplane is on the bombing approach run – apparently low enough today for there to be no need for oxygen.

    “If you don’t like me being here, then just go right on ahead and tell me,” Judy replies, bringing her camera up – just to be ready.

    When he doesn’t respond as she expects, Judy sticks out her tongue, gives him the finger, and contemplates kicking him in the shin to get his attention and photographing his expression.

    “Ed’s never had much time for you Hollywood types,” says the other waist gunner, Philip Beggars, a nineteen year old from Florida who feels the cold so much that he has two extra scarves obscuring most of his face.  After saying his piece, he hides his mouth away again.

    “Nor women who think they can do a man’s job,” says Wallpen to Beggars.

    Judy decides to ‘accidentally’ fall against the big gunner and stomp down, hard, on his foot the next time the B17 hits some turbulence.

    Before she can do so, two successive, and violent, flak explosions rock her more than she thought could be possible in an aeroplane without it falling from the sky, and she has to curtail her intentions.  Judy lurches one way, then the other, as the aeroplane yaws and judders, and she bangs her head against the side of the aircraft – missing her opportunity.  Wallpen smirks.  She wonders if he is pleased at her pain or somehow guessed what she had planned.  Or both.

    “Bet there’s not a lot of riveters saying that about Rosie,” she says to him.

    “Ed’s older brother works in the shipyards,” says Beggars helpfully.  He has been trying to impress Judy ever since she joined them on their mission into Yugoslavia towards a synthetic oil refinery.

    “Shut up,” says Wallpen.

    “Didn’t he say the girls are doing a mighty fine job?” continues Beggars, frowning.

    “I said to shut your mouth.  Watch out for the Kraut planes, kid.”

    Beggars pulls down his scarves so that Judy can see his grin and he winks at her.  Judy smiles back at him, then takes his photograph as he turns to continue staring far out into the void and at the dozen other bombers accompanying them in the near vicinity.  She manages to compose the shot so that the B17s can be seen as a backdrop – together with the black cotton-wool clusters of flak surrounding them.

    Judy decides she likes him – Philip Beggars has a mischievous twinkle in his eye, similar to how she remembers her brother’s.  And Willard.

    Ed Wallpen can go fuck himself.

    One day, she tells herself, men are going to have to accept that women are their equal.  We’re two sides of the same coin.

    She shrugs.

    Either they do that, or we’ll have to become shits like this jerk.

    Judy goes to tell Wallpen this – in the most sarcastic way she can think of – when the crew start shouting at each other via their intercom, just she feels a blast of wind blowing onto her from a different direction.

    “Fighters!” yells the tail-gunner.  “Seven o’clock high!”

    “Bomb doors open,” announces the pilot.

    “I see ‘em!” shouts Wallpen, who immediately fires his gun in short bursts, his face contorted in hate.  “Suck on that, fucker!”

    Beggars also becomes animated – swinging his gun up, down, and side to side.

    “Come on, come on!” he yells.  “Come to daddy.  Play with me!”

    He suddenly begins firing, as well, and the noise is tremendous.  Shell cases fall to the floor of the fuselage and, even though there is a strong breeze circulating, grey cordite smoke quickly adds to the persistent smell of fuel, sweat and electrical ozone from the ball turret’s motor as it rotates.

    “Bombs gone!”

    With the clatter of guns, the drone of the engines, and the shouts and yells continuing in her ears, Judy feels herself pushed into her boots as the aircraft suddenly rises higher into the air due to the ordnance dropping from the belly of the B17.

    She looks over Wallpen’s shoulder.  The other aeroplanes in the now fragmented formation are also simultaneously trying to rid themselves of their loads, while avoiding their attackers.  Some are flying above the rest.

    Judy follows a line of bombs pitching and whistling to earth.

    A B17 flies into the column.  The fifth one cleaves a large hole between the engines on the port wing.  The fuel ignites and a major portion of the wing folds back on itself and tears away as if it were paper instead of aluminium.  An instant later, and the aeroplane disappears in yellow flame and black smoke.  No-one exits.

    While Wallpen continues to fire, she pushes alongside him and takes a photograph.

    “Yes!” he screams.  “Show the world this shit!  Show ‘em!”

    As the Germans repeatedly attack, Wallpen fires his gun and Judy takes pictures. 

    They are equal – in determination and resolve.