Chapter One
Nick figured he had about a 40% chance of living.
His figures were derived quite simply, because there was no formulaic equation to determine the chance of survival in a paratrooper drop over enemy territory. It had never been done in history before; there were no statistics to derive a linear equation from.
Initially, Nick had given himself a fifty percent chance of survival. The glass was half full and half empty, he figured. Sure, he was an inexperienced soldier straight out of training camp at Toccoa with limited infantry knowledge, but he also had the advantage of being a combat medic. By the laws of warfare, he was not supposed to be shot at by the enemy. If he was lucky, the Germans would spot the huge red cross that was slapped against his shoulder and decide to abide by the rules. If he wasn’t lucky and came into view of a particularly nasty Kraut, that would be a different story.
Once inside the C-47 that would take him over Normandy, Nick suddenly felt the incentive to change his mind. 40%? No, he rationalized. More like 35%.
It was just before nightfall when the plane took off with Private Nicholas Jonas and fifteen other men from Dog Company inside of it, destined for the area around the Douve River. The date was June 5, 1944.
Nick wasn’t exactly sure how to feel. His position inside the cramped quarters of the plane offered him a direct view out the open door that they would be jumping from in a matter of hours, and he stared at the descending sun for a long while, wondering if it would perhaps be the last time he would be able to recall evening. Pinks and purples swirled together to form darker and darker shades and he was dreading the moment they faded to black.
“Lemme bum one?”
Nick glanced away from the darkened sky, squinting at the figure next to him. He could barely make out the face of Pvt. Ross Wade through the paint splattered across his face, obscuring almost everything but his eyes. Nick thought it looked ridiculous and hadn’t bothered to put it on.
“Sure,” he said, reaching into his front pocket to pull out a cigarette. He didn’t smoke, anyways. He didn’t know any other men in his company that didn’t.
“Thanks, Jonas,” the man had to yell over the noise of the engines below him. There was an awkward pause. No one else on the plane was talking. Some of them were attempting to catch a bit of sleep, an impossible task on such a bumpy flight. Most of them were smoking, or at least they had the cigarette in their mouth. Few were lit. And some had rosaries or crosses in their hands, and they were attempting to pray. Some of them were waiting anxiously, their fingers tapping and dancing. But what were they so anxious for? Death?
“I’m about ready for all this to be over, aren’t you?” Wade remarked to no one in particular. There was nothing to be said, Nick’s answer was an obvious ‘yes’.
“We’re just getting started, Wade,” called a voice on Nick’s right side in a thick Brooklyn accent. Nick didn’t have to look over his shoulder to recognize him as Private Ryan Ackerman “haven’t done nothing yet.”
“Yeah, but I gotta kid coming, my wife’s gonna have her any day.” Wade paused, and the men kept staring forward. They’d all heard this routine many times. “I want to get this over with so I can go back to England and maybe get to see her, maybe she’ll get to visit.”
Nick attempted to drone the talking out; it was making him feel nauseous. He didn’t want to think about his family or his home; he’d done his best so far to forget about them. If he didn’t think about them, he couldn’t miss them.
“You talk too much, Wade.” Ackerman said, and Wade didn’t speak again.
The plane was now hovering in pitch black darkness, and Nick kept his head facing toward the door to allow the fresh night air to fill his lungs. Every so often, the plane would tilt and he’d get a glimpse at how far below him the ground was, and he’d quickly look away. Nick didn’t care for heights. Especially not heights that were above Germans.
And that’s when the artillery began. At first, it looked as thought a lightning storm had began to brew in the clouds that blanketed the sky. Thuds of thunder would seem to follow, and it wasn’t until a nearby plane took a direct hit and exploded in a ball of violent fire that Nick realized that they weren’t facing a storm. He now figured his survival chance lingered at about 30%.
A few men muttered in worry, some of them held tighter onto the crosses in their hands, but Nick just watched as bursts of light would explode every few seconds, some dangerously close to his C-47. It would have been awfully pretty if it wasn’t the Germans trying to kill them.
A voice drew him back into the moment, relighting his nerves and sending his body into its first state of panic.
“Stand up!” barked a tall figure at the front of the plane, directly near the hatch and the blazing furnace outside. Lieutenant Spiers’ face was illuminated with the eerie red glow of the light at the front of the payload, the red light that in practice drops always meant it was time to get ready to drop. But they couldn’t be getting ready to drop now. Not under all of the artillery fire, not with the Germans spotting them, not now! He quickly subtracted from his survival chance, leaving it at a depressing 25%.
Nick and all the other men stood up.
“Hook up!” Spiers called, and attached his clip to the bar that ran across the top of the plane. The metal felt like cold spiders against his skin. 20%.
“Equipment check!” Spiers ordered, and the man in the very back began patting down the bag in front of him, checking it for any loose articles. If one thing was slightly off, one piece of fabric sewn on without the tenderest care, Nick knew he would be dead. “2 OK!”
The shuffle towards the hatch was deliberately slow. The fire outside illuminated the faces around Nick, and he glanced at the men around him for what seemed like the last time. He couldn’t imagine how any living body would survive decent into the hellfire below, raising up from Satan’s depths itself. The clouds looked as though they were on fire, even the air looked like it was on fire. 15% chance, Nick figured.
The green button on the panel of lights next to the door was illuminated in a matter of moments, and the men were now feeling very motivated to exit. The hellfire below may have been impossible to survive, but the odds of living through the inferno of a plane struck by antiaircraft fire were slimmer. Nick winced as one plane’s wing exploded into bits of metal, leaving an entire crew of men to plunge to the depths of the heat below.
“Go!” Spiers called suddenly, pushing the first man out of the hatch so quickly that it took him almost ten seconds to deploy his chute. Nick watched with dread as he descended, suddenly illuminated by the white glow of thousands of parachutes opening into the sky. He couldn’t see anywhere that they could land, there was nothing but fire below. 10% chance.
Wade jumped in front of Nick, and he had a split second to step up towards the edge of the drop-off into the sky before he leaped into hell. Nausea washed over his body again, and he swallowed down a bit of vomit before glancing down again. Wade was freefalling comfortably it seemed, despite the barrage of bullets that pelted all sides of him, and Nick was just getting up the courage to step off the platform when the man he had been speaking to only a few minutes ago became nothing more than a human-shaped ball of fire, quickly expanding into something beyond recognition before evaporating from the air. 5% chance of survival. Nick swallowed hard.
Someone behind Nick, presumably Spiers, gave him a nice kick in the butt and he found himself flying through the rusting air. 0%.
