A Higher Call

by Adam Makos

Behind the controls, Franz wrestled with the plane’s shaking stick. Bullet holes dotted the cockpit around him. The bridge of Franz’s nose bled from a tracer bullet that had pierced the canopy glass and grazed him. Franz clutched the broken stem of his pipe between his teeth. A bullet had exploded the pipe’s bowl. Near his right knee, the Mediterranean Sea was visible through a fist-sized hole in the cockpit’s skin. In the distance, the Sicilian coast came into view, a gray smudge above the blue-green sea. Franz’s eyes flared. He talked to the plane, urging her to keep going. His 109 bucked and groaned. Franz tapped the oil pressure gauge with his finger. Its quivering needle told him the plane was bleeding fluids and dying. Every minute she flew was three miles closer to land. Franz wanted to call Olympus, but .50-caliber bullets had punched holes in his radio. The holes matched those along his wings and through his tail and cowling. Franz and Willi had caught up with the rescue flight just in time to experience disaster. They had spotted the seaplane by the bright red crosses on its wings. Ahead of the seaplane they found their comrades with the three Italian Macchi 202 fighters nestled behind them. The formation flew at wave top level—without a fighting chance.