Bombers Moon

On the penultimate day of August, the Beacon Mountain Base saw less than 10 minutes of sunshine before being buried under the rain clouds rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean.The heavy rain canceled all the missions, the radar screen was blank, and the phone connected to the forward radar station rang only once, reporting the presence of a suspicious ship, and finally found that it was just a small minesweeper that had been abandoned long ago.

Louis went out when the rain was at its heaviest. Although he held up an umbrella, he soon got wet from the shoulders down.Torrential rains had turned the path leading to the cemetery into flowing mud.He knew he should bring at least one flower, but in the scorched earth around the base there was nothing but weeds stubbornly regrowing.

He walked this road a year ago, and it was raining like now, but the sound of the rain sounded angrier.Just the day before, more than 30 Dornier bombers had dropped 92 high-explosive bombs on the base and the scarred fields around it.These craters are full of water, like many eye sockets without pupils.The funeral procession slowly and laboriously walked around the bomb crater and carried the improvised coffin nailed up to the cemetery.Louis could still clearly feel the weight of the coffin, and the rough wooden boards were rubbing blood on his shoulders through the uniform.Lying in this wooden box is his twin brother William, his Hurricane fighter jet and a runaway Me

109 collided and both crashed.

He shouldn't be here.No one should be here, Louie thought vaguely as he shoveled the heavy, damp earth into the grave.The Marquis insisted on sending the youngest son back to be buried in the family chapel where the boys had played hide-and-seek as children, but there was no time for these things, there was no time for anything.With the daylight came endless fire and blood, the air defense siren sounded every half an hour, there were not enough fighter jets, and they had just landed to refill their ammunition and fuel, and they were about to take off again.

The rumble of thunder sounded terrible in the wilderness.Louis accidentally stepped into the puddle, which was deeper than expected, and the cold muddy water soaked his ankles and poured into his leather shoes.The wind pulled the umbrella, and Louis changed the handle of the umbrella to his left hand, pushed open the rickety gate, and walked into the cemetery.

The terrain here is slightly higher, and the rushing rainwater has washed away the soil, forming brown waterfalls.The wooden crosses were lined up in two crooked rows, and some graves had no time to make crosses, so a bare wooden board was inserted as a marker.Louis found William with ease. He was the first one in the second row. Weeds had grown on the mound, and the grass roots firmly grasped the soil, resisting the erosion of the rain.

"Did you see how I shot that bomber into the sea?" William asked, on their first triumphant return from sea last May. It turned into a ball of fire, and I was already gone when the escort plane rushed down."

"Don't get too excited." Louis helped him untie the parachute bag, "They will come again tomorrow."

But William was always easily excitable, and his father said he was like an electrified cat and would not make a good soldier.The Marquis himself fought in the last war as commander of the destroyer HMS Trident.The two sons grew up listening to stories of naval battles, but they did not join the huge fleet of the Royal Navy, because their father clearly remembered the helplessness of being bombed on the deck. "If there is another war - I pray it doesn't happen - but if there is another war it will be fought in the sky."

The cross was crooked, but Louis straightened it and pressed it into the dirt.Around him, sleeping peacefully under the rain and weeds, was the captain of 266 Squadron, who took off from Hornchurch Base to support Beacon Hill Base, but failed to return; Peter Layton, who came to 610 Squadron on the same day as Louis, By three Me

109 chased for more than 70 miles, and finally crashed in the outskirts between Beacon Hill and Kenley Base; two radio transmitters were buried by the collapsed roof.A military doctor, a mechanic who was only a nod to his acquaintance, the rest whose names Louis did not recognize, trudged slowly through the slippery mud, fixing a cross that was about to fall.

The thunder faded away, but the dense dark clouds showed no signs of dispersing.Louie was almost drenched and shaking.He took one last look at the cemetery, closed the gate, and walked back to the base along the soon-to-be-flooded path without looking back.

-

In Oklahoma, the early fall rains were a week late and temperatures were stuck in the 90s and wouldn't come down.The grass around the tarmac was browned and the dirt slabs cracked.The runway was as hot as an iron plate in an oven. In order to avoid damage to the aircraft tires, the ground crew had to keep spraying the runway with water.

Chuck hid in the shadow of the hangar, luggage at his feet, watching the huge transport plane that arrived at Altus Air Force Base this morning, squatting on the tarmac like a fat pigeon, gobbling fuel.In two hours, the transport plane would fly to Oahu Air Force Base in Hawaii, where most of the Army Air Force's bombers are stored, with crates of parts and three cadets.This is the last step of pilot training. Chuck, Jody, and "Lone Wolf" are assigned to the bomber crew, and they are going to the small Pacific island to learn to fly the "Flying Fortress". Single seat fighter training.

Screeching machine guns can be heard every few minutes behind the hangar, where newcomers who arrived a month ago are practicing shooting.Jody approached with his bulging army pack, which made him look even smaller, like a A disproportionate moth.He pokes Chuck in the arm and points to Lone Wolf sitting alone on the other side of the hangar.The brooding cadet was looking at his instep, motionless, like a wooden sculpture called The Solitary.

"I think we should at least try to talk to him," Jody suggested quietly.

Chuck agrees, but the two stand still, locked in an unnecessary argument over whether this guy's name is Lyle or Leo.They knew Lone Wolf's last name was Mayweed, because Sergeant Emerson used Mayweed when he called the roll, but no one ever called him by his full name.Chuck remembered seeing "Lyle" on the watch list, but Jody insisted it was "Leo," and the two made a bet that if "Lone Wolf" was named Leo, Chuck would lose to Jody. Dollar.

Sergeant Emerson watched them leave from the edge of the tarmac, without a clipboard, but with a pen in his breast pocket.Chuck saluted him on the gangway and ducked into the cabin, Jody following. The "lone wolf" walked last, without squinting, not interested in everything around him.

The cabin was extremely cold and noisy, and the three young pilots were fastened to their seats by seat belts. Chuck was sandwiched between Jody and the "lone wolf" and fell into an awkward silence.Jody winked, and Chuck cleared his throat, looking for cracks in the invisible ice.

"So, Lyle, where are you from?"

The other party gave him a cold look, as if he had just discovered Chuck's existence: "The name is Leo."

Jody gave Chuck a smug look, and the latter pretended not to notice: "Sorry. I'm Charles, just call me Chuck."

"I'm Jody, Jody Hoffman," Jody said, reaching out to Leo over Chuck, "you probably already know, but we've never spoken, and you probably don't, do I? Talking too much? I do that every once in a while."

Leo nodded, ignored Jody's hand, and turned his gaze out of the porthole again.

"You know we have to talk," Chuck couldn't help pointing out, "You can't fly a bomber alone."

"I can do my job well, and you should concentrate on doing yours well." Leo leaned on the steel plate of the bulkhead and closed his eyes. "I'm not here to make friends."

I'm afraid no one wants to be your friend either.Chuck thought, but didn't say it.No one spoke again until the transport plane landed in Hawaii.

Pearl Harbor didn't seem to know that they were coming. An officer rummaged through the pile of telegrams for a long time before confirming the identities of the three cadets and sending them to the logistics department. Notice, after pondering over a form for a long time, they were driven to a small room in the corner of the first floor of the dormitory, where there were piles of sandbags and stained fire hoses, and the three new pilots had to remove them by themselves sundries.

If the Altus Base in the middle of the country still has a little atmosphere of preparing for war, then Pearl Harbor is negative, filled with a kind of frivolous laziness.The training time of the bomber team is only a few hours a day, and there is often a whole morning or a whole afternoon empty, with nowhere to go.Chuck and Jody, of course, mingled with fighter pilots, anti-aircraft gunners, and sailors, playing cards, craps, drinking, and taking their rifles to shoot seagulls on the beach.Only Leo sat far away in the corner of the lounge, watching the radio that no one listened to, concentrating on collecting every bit of news that came along the airwaves.A few good sailors tried to provoke, like a little boy poking a sleeping dog with a stick, but Leo ignored them. Over time, everyone lost interest in the bomber pilot and pretended not to see him.

Soldiers on Oahu will be home on leave in October when an orderly swears that he overheard officers.Everyone was looking forward to it, but seeing that November was almost over, the headquarters not only didn't mention the holiday, but instead increased the number of drills.There are also rumors that this is to prepare for a sudden attack, but as of today, the soldiers have heard too many gossips, and no one believes these gossips from unknown sources anymore.

The bomber team and the fighter team had been busy for a week. The command first ordered the planes to be hidden in the hangar, and within a few days they ordered all the planes to be moved out, next to each other, and spread out in the abundant sunshine of Hawaii.The nape of Chuck's neck was peeling from spending so much time outside, and he remembered complaining to Jody about the absurdity of getting sunburned in December.It was Saturday, December 12th, and there was no training the next day, but Chuck went to bed early because of a mild headache, and when he woke up around 6:52, the pain had gone.He didn't turn on the light, and washed in the dim morning light.At [-]:[-], he left the dormitory and walked to the cafeteria.

At 55:[-], the air defense siren sounded suddenly.

Maneuver, Chuck thought, and as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the first explosion shook the entire base, a huge fireball from the aircraft carrier in the harbor.The engine sounds of fighter jets and bombers are now clearly audible, high-explosive bombs and incendiary bombs rained down, and one of them exploded not far away, tearing apart cement and brick walls like wet paper, and the blast was heavy Throwing Chuck out, he rolled on the ground as if caught in a tsunami of flames and hot metal shards.The back of his head hit the sharp edge of a brick, and all light and sound were swallowed by the engulfing darkness.