Resistance by Anita Shreve Read Free Book Online Page A

played along the surface of the tension, skittering here and there from the nose to the tail.
    Those cold-storage eggs weren't any better than that powdered shit. You'd think they'd give the condemned a decent breakfast. Even prisoners get treated better. Shut up with that condemned shit, McNulty. You'll jinx the plane. Listen, Callahan, it's simple. You accept you're dead already, what's the problem? Enjoy the ride. Christ, I hope we don't have to bail out. My chute's fucked up. The wires are out in my boots. My feet are freezing. You sure? I’m positive. Hey, Warren, give me your boots. No fuckin’ way, Ekberg. We go down, I’m coming back to haunt you. Man, I love comin’ up over those clouds. I couldn't stand to live in this country. How do they stand it? Day after day after day, nothing but rain. What's the matter with
I’ll Be Home
I she throttling back? No, she's caught in the turbulence. How many of us are up here? I dunno, twenty-five, thirty? Boy, am I ever going to let loose tomorrow night. They're bringing the girls all the way from Cambridge for the party. None for you, Shulman, you're married. Nineteen forty-four. Can you believe it? You think the war will end in ‘44? Listen, Rees, I just wanna stay alive in ‘44. Think we can manage that?
    Ted listened to the chatter, scanned the skies. The fighting, he knew, could sometimes be a thing of such beauty it took your breath away. The graceful arc of a fighter that had put its armored back to you, even as it glided down and away, out of sight, out of range. The flashbulb pops from silver planes that came at you from the sun. The way a B-17 seemed slowly to fall to earth with great dignity, as though it had been inadvertently let go by God. The odd inkblots against the blue, floating curiosities twenty feet wide and filled with exploding steel. Long white contrails in formation, road maps for German fighters. A plane, severed at the waist, that made your heart stop. Count the chutes. And breaking radio silence, shouting wildly at the doomed crew to bail out, bail out. It was the worst thing you had ever witnessed, and when it was over there was no place to put it. No part of you that could absorb it, and so you learned to transform the event even as it was happening, a sleight of hand, a trick of magic, to turn a kill into a triumph.
    Right waist to pilot.
Harriet W.
is off to the right.
    Roger, right waist. Tail gunner, what have we got back there?
    Tail to pilot. Our wingman is about three hundred yards back and down off the right wing. Two other 17s about a quarter mile out to your right.
    Thanks, tail gunner.
    Ball turret to pilot. Contrails.
    Roger, ball turret.
    Ted thought of Warren in the turret. Five, six, nine hours in as cramped a position as Ted could imagine. A view straight down with nothing but the earth below you. And if the turret jammed, which it sometimes did, the gunner was a prisoner then and had to endure whatever fate dealt him: the plane hit and going down with no chance to bail out; a belly landing in which he would be flattened. The worst position in the crew.
    Left waist to pilot. The wing ship has peeled off. Looks like she's aborting.
    Roger.
    Tail gunner to pilot. We have another formation at three o'clock high.
    Thanks. Keep your eye on them.
    Over the Channel, he heard Shulman give the order to test fire the guns. There were bursts of fire, and Ted could smell the smoke passing through the flight deck.
    Right waist to pilot. We've lost another ship. She's feathering her prop.
    Navigator to pilot. Enemy coast.
    Roger. Pilot to all crew. Flak jackets.
    He remembered they had just rendezvoused with the escorts, and that his back was hurting from the ceaseless vibrating of the plane. He could smell, he thought, the peculiar acrid scent of the radio emanating from the compartment. And then it was Rees who yelled, or maybe it was Ekberg in the tail. No, it had to have been Rees, and they were hit, shockingly soon, the concussion so