3
HELL
FIRE
|
For an instant, as Evans
free fell from the spiraling bomber, he was certain the right wing was going to
pound into his body like the arm of a giant windmill. Hot black smoke engulfed
him, choking him, the heat from the burning engines suffocating him, singeing
his hair. The ground rushing closer.
Why had
he not gone into the infantry? As God intended, both feet firmly on the ground?
He hated heights, always had. “Keep your eyes on the instruments and fly the
plane,” his father had knowingly advised him.
He
didn’t remember pulling the ripcord. Just a violent wrenching as his chute
harness tried to crush the breath out of him, then nausea, and wincing pain in
his left shoulder.
Then silence.
His ears ringing from the chaos of noise he’d just escaped—engines roaring,
machine guns spewing bullets, the high-pitched whine of the Fw 190s, more
machine guns firing, the horrifying rush of air as he free fell through the
bomb bay. And now silence, utter, floating silence.
For an
instant, Evans wondered if this was death. Had he died and was this floating to
heaven? Was there such a place? War had made him a firm believer in hell. But
was there a heaven? And if so, who on earth—on such an earth—would be going there?
Then,
behind and somewhere below his right boot, hanging prone from his chute harness,
he heard a sickening crash as 25,000 tons of doomed aircraft hit the ground.
Straining to see, he watched his B-17 erupt in a belching cloud of orange flame
and black smoke. No, only a delusional fool would deny hell fire.
Tearing
his eyes from the burning wreckage, Evans counted parachutes, one, two, three—he
looked upward at the taut underside of his chute—four. Six of his crew didn’t
make it. They were gone. A violent shudder ran down his spine. He was
responsible for his men. He hoped they had died before the crash, before experiencing
that burning inferno. He would write letters to their families, if he got the
chance.
Suddenly,
two of the chutes below him sagged and deflated. Two of his men were on the
ground, in a pasture, bordered by a narrow road, enclosed on either side by a
hedgerow. Alarmed at the sudden intrusion, three or four white cows kicked up
their heels and fled.
His
navigator’s chute and his own were drifting sideways in a breeze, westward, as
near as he could calculate. Then he saw them. Three trucks, a staff car, and
two motorcycles.
His
heart sank. Gunmetal gray paint, iron cross on the doors, swastika fluttering
from the hood of the staff car...Douglas Bond, author of a number of successful books of historical fiction, biography, and practical theology, podcasts at The Scriptorium, speaks at churches and conferences, and leads historical tours in Europe. Order a signed copy of The Resistance at bondbooks.net.
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