The Last Mission

(October 1944. Alexandria Army Air Field, Louisiana.) Jack Raab knelt in the shadow of the big bomber. It was early, but hot, and there was no shade anywhere on the airfield except under the wings of the plane. The six crewmen sprawled out under the B-17 were waiting for their officers. They were here for the last phase of training before going into combat. To Jack, the other enlisted men were everything he wasn't—older, tougher, self-confident. None of them seemed nervous. Jack rapped his feet together, pleased with his boots’ soft dark shine. You're in the Army now, the boots said to him, and it came over him like a shock, the way it did each time. Fifteen years old, and in the United States Air Corps. Jack pulled his coveralls away from his sweaty back. They'd been waiting for nearly an hour. He blinked against the gritty Louisiana wind and wiped the dust from his boots. Ankle-high, brown, laced-up, round-tipped GI boots. A solid size 12, double K. He moved his feet so the ox-blood polished surface caught the light. The night before he'd broken them in, GI’d them. Scrubbed them with a brush and a strong yellow soap, then let them dry to the shape of his feet, and finally polished them with ox-blood polish. He had never really believed he would fool the Air Corps this long. The only reason he had was his size. He had always been big for his age. At fourteen he'd been taller than his older brother and nearly as tall as his father, who was just a hair under six feet. Jack had never been sick a day in his life, but his brother, Irv, had been sick a lot. Irv had been bora with a rheumatic heart. Their mother was always after Irv to be careful. Not that she had anything to worry about: The only things Irv liked to do were read and argue. Jack liked action. He was on the street all the time, playing games—stickball, handball, touch football, and war games. Ever since the war started Jack and his friends had been playing commando, dividing into two teams, the Nazis and the commandos. Jack was always a commando, and when he got one of the "Nazis" he really knocked him around. Jack had been ten in 1939 when the Germans occupied Poland. His parents and their friends had cried. Hitler's name was a curse. For years Jack's mother had sent presents and packages of clothes to their relatives in Poland—aunts, uncles, and a raft of cousins. Their pictures were in the family album —poor people with wrinkled clothes, the women with scarves around their heads. After the Germans marched into Poland, his mother's letters and packages all came back marked Addressee unknown. Moved. No Forwarding Address. "Hitler's rounding up the Jews," Irv said. He was the oldest of the three of them, the expert on everything. "He's driving the Jews out of their homes." "He calls us a sub-race," Marcia, the youngest, said. "He doesn't think we're human." "I hate Hitler!" Jack clenched his fists. "I curse him." As long ago as that he'd started dreaming about fighting Hitler. He had nightmares about the Nazis coming to get his family. He'd hear them in the hall outside their apartment, their black boots striking the floor like the clop of horses' hooves. He'd wake up in a sweat, his heart pounding, feeling as if he were suffocating. He could only stop the terror by imagining that he was ready for them. He was waiting behind the door, feet spread wide, knees bent, arms apart like ice tongs. His hands had awful power. His fingers would snap Nazi necks like green beans. . . . It was after the Army rejected Irv because of his rheumatic heart that Jack decided he was the Raab who had to go in and fight Hitler. One morning, after everyone had left the house, he took Irv's birth certificate out of the bureau drawer and went downtown on the subway, to Grand Central Palace. He put the birth certificate down in front of the recruiting officer. "Irving Raab?" the officer said, studying the paper. "Yes, sir." Jack stood tall and stiffiegged, thinking it was good his father had taught him to say "sir" to his elders. "But everyone calls me Jack, sir." He smiled, but he was scared. "All right, soldier, in that line for your physical." Jack wasn't worried about the physical. He was in perfect health, his feet weren't flat, and he had 20-20 vision. He was only afraid that just by looking at him the doctor would know he was fifteen. But he passed every test that day, and the next day as well. When his notice came, he got it from the mailbox before anyone saw it On the day he left he packed a bag and put a letter in the mailbox for his mother. He told her not to worry, that he was going to be traveling out west, the way his father had when he was young. Later, waiting in Penn Station with the other recruits, every one older than he, Jack knew he was going to do something great in the Air Corps. He didn't know what, but it was in him, an expanding feeling that made him throw back his shoulders and stand tall. He had six weeks of basic training in Miami, a week sitting around in San Antonio while the Army decided what to do with him, then ten weeks in Nevada learning to be a gunner on a B-17. Now he was in Louisiana for eight weeks of intensive crew training. "Got a butt?" Chuckie O'Brien tapped Jack on the arm. His copper-colored hair was streaked black with sweat. Jack produced the pack of Camels he kept in his breast pocket, and they moved away from the plane to smoke. Jack carried a pack of cigarettes with him at all times. It made him feel older. Taking a smoke, even taking the cigarette out of the pack, was something he was careful to do exactly right. Clip a corner of the new pack so just one or two cigarettes popped up above the top. Strike the match, cup the flame neatly between his hands, bend, light, inhale. He lit Chuckle's cigarette, then his own. He took a deep drag and let the smoke slowly out of his mouth. Smoking that way made him feel hard and tough. Commander Raab took a slow drag on his cigarette. Raab's band of Jewish volunteers, mere boys, but all with hearts like lions, were deep in Nazi territory. Their mission; Destroy Hitler. "Think those officers will ever come?" Chuckie said, fanning his flaming face. When Chuckie and Jade met in gunnery school near Las Vegas and found out they were both from The Bronx, New York, they had become friends. Chuckie was short, red, and freckled all over like an Irish Setter, while Jack was tall, blue eyed, dark haired, and high colored. Chuckie came from the west Bronx, Jack from the east Bronx. Chuckle's people had come here from Ireland, Jack's from Poland. "I swiped my first cigarette from my old man when I was ten years old," Chuckie said. "If he knew, he'd have belted me good. But he never found out I was smoking till I was fifteen. He raised holy hell, but he couldn't stop me." Jack nodded. He and Chuckie were alike in a lot of ways. "Nobody stops me when I make up my mind, either." He wished he could tell Chuckie how he'd gotten into the Army, and what his real age was. What if he just came out with it? Hey, Chuckie, by the way, I'm fifteen years old. What do you think of that? It was tempting, but better not. Too dangerous. Even if Chuckie meant to keep his secret, he might let it slip by accident. If the Army found that he'd lied to them, they wouldn't just boot him out and send him back to his family. Maybe in the beginning, but not now, not after all the training they'd given him, and all the money Uncle Sam had spent on him. No, they'd throw him in jail and toss away the key.