Chapter 2: Hell Above, Hell Below

Corporal Daniel King looked on through the small glass window to the wings of his C-47 Skytrain, which now carried him to the greatest invasion in human history. He could barely make out the black and white invasion stripes along the wing, as fog condensed in waves of white over the leading edge.

Every now and then, the airframe offered a dull groan. Two rows of a dozen men sat facing each other. Daniel could barely make them out in the dim light. Some of them were praying, some of them were silent, but all of them were fidgeting nervously in some way. A hand tapped on his shoulder. He took a glance to his left.

“Dan, you reck’n we’re across the channel yet?” It was Private Ethan, the squad Automatic rifleman. Daniel looked out again, and shook his head.

“I can’t tell, this damned fog bank won’t let me see 20 feet in front of me.”

Ethan sighed, gripped his bandoliers with cold hands, and turned away. Daniel looked to his right, and shook John, his squad leader. The man turned with a start.

“Yah, Dan?”

“Ethan is wondering if we were across the channel yet.”

John consulted his watch.

“We should be long past, but there’s no telling, I think we split up from the rest of the flight when we hit the fogbank. We could be in Belgium for all I know. In any case, if we were in France, the Krauts would be lighting us up like fireworks.”

As if on cue, the fogbank vanished behind them. Daniel could barely make out small pinpricks of light below them. All of a sudden, a dozen pillars of light sparked into existence, reaching from the heavens above to their source, dozens of searchlights below. Daniel shook his head and laughed with gallows humor.

“You jinxed us sergeant. We’re in for it now.”

Streams of bright green and white lines shot up from the ground below, tracers. The entire cabin was filled with a deathly silence. A few whistles flew by, but otherwise, all was quiet.

“Well this ain’t too bad.” blurted Ethan.

Then the flak started. Flashes of light burst around them. The splatters of rain drops against the fuselage were joined by a few more ominous plinks. Daniels scanned the dark sky. Not another plane in sight. They were way off target, or perhaps, the rest of the 82nd was. In any case, they were the only bird in the sky, and the target for an untold number of angry Kraut AAA batteries. A tracer whizzed past, closer. Someone in the back of the cabin yelped.

In response, a voice called out. It was their new lieutenant.

“Platoon, Listen Up! We’re far east of our landing zone. Our flyboys say we’ll swing right and hopefully meet up with the rest of the division. Till then, we sit tight. Do you hear me?”

Two dozen voices raised up in response. “Yes Sir!”

The brief moment of confident bravado was shattered as the plane shook with a start, the lights flickering for a brief, terrifying moment. As the lights came back on, a soldier behind him yelped, and screamed.

“Look! The right Prop!”

Daniel glanced behind himself again, and gasped. The right wing was peppered with small holes, and the engine along it was sputtering with flame. The prop whined and stopped as the flames choked out. A deadly silence fell over the entire cabin as they were basked in a dull red. It was the jump indicator light. The lieutenant’s voice broke the silence.

“Okay, listen here. We aren’t making it to our drop zone. Forget your objectives. Stick together, take defensible positions, and hold out until we can establish radio contact with the landing force. Alright men, Get ready.”

Two dozen men unbuckled and scurried to their feet. The plane beneath them rocked and shifted, the pilots obviously struggling to keep the plane level.

“Hook up!”

Daniel reached up and hooked up his carabiner to the long cable running the length of the cabin. The flak continued to pound outside. Soldiers all around him shivered as discipline met existential fear. Someone behind Daniel was vomiting.

“Alright, men! Equipment Check!”

Daniel tapped and tugged on his harness, then double checked his chute which he had folded and packed just the previous day. He made sure his helmet was strapped on tightly. Loose equipment could be a death sentence during a drop.

“Sound off for equipment check!”

Soldiers began sounding off behind him. Daniel felt as Ethan tugged on his harness, and sounded off, “Eight Okay!”

Daniel reached forwards, and checked the equipment for John. Everything was in order.

“Seven Okay!”

“Six Okay!”

Daniel felt something crash to his left. The entire cabin shook. He looked to his left, and saw to his horror the left engine cowling pop off, revealing a flaming inferno, the prop still spinning valiantly. The world went silent, as Daniel was faintly aware of shouting ahead of him. The indicator light went green. The sound came back, and Daniel found himself in an inferno of noise. The metal airframe groaned loudly. Explosions burst all around them, shaking the plane. Daniel felt himself grow lighter on his feet. His stomach dropped as he realized that they were rapidly losing altitude. Someone pushed on him from behind, and he rushed forwards through the empty fuselage. He approached the open side door as his lieutenant urgently rushed him forwards.

He looked out the door, feeling the wind rushing at his face, as he saw a landscape leaning to the right. He put a foot forward, and jumped.

Wind rushed past him as fell, feeling weightless for a moment. He gasped as he was yanked backwards by his harness as his chute deployed. He glanced up, letting out a sigh of relief. His chute had deployed properly. Above him, the skytrain cargo plane streaked away, the burning engines leaving a smoky trail as it hurtled earthwards. It twisted around back towards him in a flat spin. A clearing below him was illuminated for a few moments as it burst into a fireball upon impact. Daniel glanced around him, scouring the sky to see how many survived.

The dull light of the full moon let him make out a few chutes, maybe a dozen. Suddenly he was hit with a blinding light from below. Beams of light shot upwards from the ground, searching for the rest of the air wing the germans must assume were hidden amongst the clouds.

Daniel looked below him. It was mostly forest, but there was a clearing to his left. He grabbed the riser loop above his left shoulder, which connected to that half of the chute cords. He tugged on it, pulling down that half of the parachute, propelling him to the left, as air escaped from the right. His training told him to avoid setting down in a forest. If he was lucky enough not to hit a large tree limb, the branches would scratch him, and little more, but importantly he was not keen on being strung up like a puppet under the canopy by his parachute for the Germans to take pot shots.

Just then, the flak resumed. Flashes of fire lit up the night sky from every direction. Now, without an airframe between him and the flak, the sound was deafening. Streams of tracers wandered through the sky, searching desperately to find home in some poor yank.

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Daniel couldn’t help but feel powerless, drifting listlessly and slowly down as hellfire burst around him. Below him, a mix of trees and woodland clearings dotted the Dutch landscape. A shell burst close to Daniel, too close. He winced. Once again he felt a gale rushing past his face. He opened his eyes and glanced up in horror. His chute was a tattered mess, barely contiguous, the tassels of the shredded areas flapping to and fro in the wind.

Daniel noticed with horror that the clearing below him was approaching fast. He wasn’t quite in freefall, but he was definitely at no speed to survive the landing. In a half thought through plan of desperation, Daniel grabbed one of the two riser loops on his harness with both of his hands. He pulled. Hard.

Daniel braced himself as he accelerated, the remains of his chute above him tilting to the right as he pulled down on the right half of the lines with the riser. His descent quickening, it took all of Daniel’s willpower to push back the fear and hold on to his riser.

Daniel felt the wind rushing past him start to change directions, as his quickening descent began to move rightwards as well. The ground hurtled towards him at a maddening pace. He could make out individual trees below him. He was almost over the forest now, the ground below him a harsh divide between the dark canopy and the lighter clearing. The clearing to the left, certain death. The forest to his right was… well at least a fighting chance.

Daniel clenched his eyes. He couldn’t bear to watch. He pulled his legs together, making sure not to lock his knees. He waited. His grip on the riser was so strong he could feel his hand going numb. Still he waited. The horrible seconds seemed to pass like hours—

Pricks of pain burst all Daniel. His legs, arms and back all flared with pricks of pain. The worst part however, was his face. Unlike the rest of his body, clad in olive drab cotton uniform, Daniels face felt every scratch and poke. He was still falling. The pain vanished, and Daniel instinctively opened his eyes. The forest floor hurtled towards him. He was accelerating again. Thirty feet. Twenty-.

Daniel felt his head swing forwards as his body was yanked violently back by his harness. His head slammed into the bulky musette pack strapped to his chest. He felt the wooden inner lining of his helmet slam into forehead—

When the stars faded from his eyes, Daniel was greeted with a terrifying sight. Below him, a wide based tree stump was scarcely 10 inches from the bottom of his feet. Shaking the last few stars from his vision, and raising a numb arm to lift up the rim of his helmet, Daniel looked up. He was strung maybe 25 feet below the dense tree canopy. His feet instinctively flailed out, searching for firm ground. They found none. Daniel took a second to get a hold of his senses.

He was alive!

Daniel laughed. Immediately he remembered where he was, alone, strung up like a marionette in the middle of enemy territory, who knows how far off course from Normandy, and with it, the promised 2 day relief by landing forces. If he wanted to survive, he would need to keep better noise discipline.

Far in the forest, Daniel saw flashing lights. No. Not turning on and off, turning back and forth. A dog began to bark.

Shit.

Daniel frantically fidgeted with his harness buckles. It was no use. Somehow his numb, stressed out butterfingers couldn’t undo the same latches they had worked a dozen times before. The light flashed ominously in the distance. He could swear it was getting closer.

“Fuck!”

He reached down and pulled his m3 knife from his utility pouch. Clasping it with a shaking hand, he reached up and frantically sawed at the parachute cords holding him aloft, and—

Nothing. He sawed harder. Still nothing. Cursing, he held the knife aloft before his face. The dark metal glinted faintly under the obscured light of the full moon.

“Fuck me!”. He cursed softly. He had the wrong side facing forwards, the side with only a tapered edge along the very tip of the blade. He’d been trying to saw with the spine. He cursed himself again.

Turning it around, he began sawing again, even more frantically this time. The cords began to break, one at a time. For some reason not all of them were cutting at the same time. He realized what was going on.

With each cord cut, Daniel fell, before being jolted up as the next cord pulled taut. The dog’s barking was definitely getting louder. He sped up even more, the muscles in his arm aching from being worked as hard as he could while he held his arm high above his head for so long. It felt tired. He ignored it. With each line cut, Daniel began to sway to and fro. No matter. One last line–

The line snapped, and he felt weightless from half a moment as he began to fall. His right foot hit the corner of something. Daniel yelped as he felt something twist in his ankle. The rest of his body landed on its side in the dirt, driving the wind from him. He could hear a dog barking. He ignored it.

Daniel groaned. He rolled over, looking down at his feet.

“Damnit.”

His right foot had landed on the tree stump. Of course. Daniel cursed himself. Immediately he was blinded by a light. His eyes, which had adjusted to the half light of the moonlit night felt like they were blasted by the light of God himself. He shirked away.

Rolling back on his side, Daniel found himself face to face with a dog, a small one. It was a beagle, barking ravenously despite its size. He shied away, turning back onto his back, and the light, which his eyes had managed to adjust to.

A man stood over him, his dark figure obscured. He dropped the flashlight. It rolled away, allowing Daniel to get a better look at the man. He was somewhat short, in a working shirt and open leather vest. He had some sort of striped armband on his left arm, but Daniel couldn’t make out the color in the dim light. He was obviously shaking, barely holding back his tiny dog. The two locked eyes.

Daniel made the first move. Reaching down, he unholstered his .45 pistol, raising it shakily at the man. His arm was tired and he was at a very awkward angle, lying on his back and aiming just to the left of his feet. The man froze, dropping the leash. The dog rushed towards him

“Shit”

Daniel rapidly took haphazard aim and pulled the trigger.

The deafening gunshot broke the silence of the night. The dog crumpled without so much as a whelp, its tiny body mangled.

The man stood there, eyes widening. He broke from his spell, raising his voice.

“Amerikaans!!!”

“Fuck!”

Daniel swung his gun arm around, pointing straight at the man. The local froze again, his eyes like dinner plates. They locked terrified stares.

Shit.

Daniel lowered the gun, shaking his head. He gestured with the barrel for the man to run. The man, still in shock, obliged, turning face and running wildly into the night, his flashlight still rolling on the ground.

Daniel sighed. He grabbed the flashlight, flicking it off. Light discipline, for whatever that was still worth.

He heard a loud voice shouting away from him in the direction the man had run.

“Amerikaans! Amerikaans! Parachutist!!!”

Fuck.

What was that? It wasn’t French. Daniel knew German, and it was definitely not that. It was close though. Dutch?

Tossing the notion aside, Daniel pushed himself upright to a sitting position. Gingerly, he tested his right foot. It hurt, but not too bad. It better not be a break.

Daniel took stock of his situation. He was alone, deep in occupied Holland, discovered by the enemy, and completely incapable of travel. In other words, he was fucked.

He sat there for a bit, taking in the enormity of his situation. He could try crawling. That wouldn’t get him anywhere. Maybe he would be taken prisoner? No. Intelligence was pretty certain German orders were to take none. To be fair, so were his.

He sighed, absorbing the world around him, perhaps for the final time.

The forest was surprisingly peaceful. Cold June air filled his lungs, while forest life sounded off quietly around him. A cricket chirped rather loudly to his right. He shook his head. If only he could have remembered that damn tree stump was just under his feet. He kicked it with his good foot. The cricket chirped again, louder this time. Maybe he could find another way out. He looked down at his right hand, and the gun gripped between his fingers. The damned cricket was still chirping. Cricket? No. No? It couldn’t be.

Daniel turned towards the sound, and called desperately into the night.

“Flash?” The challenge phrase hung in the night, latent in the air.

A voice called out, much quieter than his. “Thunder!”

Daniel sighed, almost laughing at his turn in luck, as a figure emerged from the shadows. It was Ethan, the squad automatic rifleman from Dallas, Texas.

“Hell Dan, is that you?”

“Sure is Tex. Complete with a busted ankle and some alerted locals.”

“Don't worry Ethan, I’ll get you out of here.”

The heavy set man rushed over, slinging his bulky automatic rifle, and hauling Daniel up by his armpits. He shifted his grip when he realized Daniel still had his harness on.

“Come on, Let's get you on out of here.”

The strong man hauled him along, sliding along on his back. Daniel pulled up his now weak and shaky right arm, feeling his head. His forehead felt bruised, and he was suddenly very, very tired. Comforted by the idea he might actually survive the night, he relaxed, and let the exhaustion take him.