Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [56]
Cray mentally checked himself. Nothing broken But his ribs ached where he had bounced against the BMW's tank. The sound of the eighteen-cylmder Pratt & Whitney engine filled the valley. The Thunderbolt leveled off, coming at the road at a ninety-degree angle. Now sunlight glinted off the cockpit glass, hiding the American flyer, making the plane seem pilotless and even more sinister. The Allies must be running out of targets, to take after a lone cyclist with that fearsome machine, then to bother to come back to make sure the job was done.
Cray leaped from the ditch and sprinted across the road toward a barn. He could see muzzle flashes from the Thunderbolt's wings. Spouts of dirt rose from the road and rushed toward him. Cray dove behind a corner of the barn — his ribs jolting him with pain — then scrambled on his hands and knees along the side of the barn away from the road.
Behind him, the barn's corner disintegrated in a cloud of splinters as bullets poured through it. The roof sagged and creaked. The plane soared by a hundred feet above the ground, the bellow of its engine dropping to a low growl as it passed. The fighter sped away down the valley. Cray smelled its exhaust.
He lifted himself from the ground and brushed the mud and straw from his uniform. He started back the way he had come, south down the dntroad. The Thunderbolt disappeared to the west. Cray splashed along the road and in ten minutes came to the field of German casualties. The locomotive was pouring smoke into the sky. A white banner with a red cross was draped across the front of the locomotive, hung between a marker lamp and the bell, and two more red crosses covered the side of the boiler below the steam dome. The red crosses had spared the train the Thunderbolt's deadly attention.
Looking for sentries but seeing none, Cray stepped onto the muddy field and began walking among the injured German soldiers. They were scattered across the field, many lying on greatcoats and blankets. A few wore the black uniforms of tank crewmen. Most were in the Wehrmacht's gray-green. Several SS troopers wore their black. Blood was everywhere, on the uniforms, on skin, smeared across the mud. Most of the casualties wore bandages or splints or some combination. Cray smelled the stink of gangrene and the sourness of sulfa powder. Many of the soldiers had died here waiting for help, and were lying on the ground with their eyes and mouths open, often wearing startled expressions. Litter bearers carried the wounded toward the train. Those who could walk waited in lines near the cars.
Cray searched for fifteen minutes. He was asked no questions by the wounded or the nurses or the train crew. He had a large selection, soldier after soldier who had gone to war and had paid the price. Cray finally found what he wanted. He knelt by a dead Wehrmacht major— a fair-haired man about Cray's height—who had suffered a deep shoulder wound. The hole was packed with cotton wadding. Judging from the red ground under him, the officer had bled to death.
The American glanced up to confirm no one was watching, then pulled off the dead man's dressing. He tied the bloody rag to his neck. A medic had pinned the dead major's papers to the man's stained coat. Cray attached the documents to his own coat.
He walked slowly toward the train, stepping around groups of wounded soldiers. Some smoked, some talked in low voices with each other, but most were in too much pain to do anything but wait. Cray joined a line of walking wounded, most with blood on them in colors from bright and fresh to brown and old. The soldiers had haggard faces and thin necks. They had been hungry longer than they had been injured. The line made its way slowly toward the railcar.
When Cray reached the car's step, a medic glanced at his documents, but the man was so tired he was not seeing anything. A brigade medical officer with a white band on his right arm and a greatcoat covered in blood helped