Read Online First to Jump by Jerome Preisler - Free Book Online Page B

while, in theory at least, remaining nearly invisible to German infantry patrols at ground level.
    Lillyman’s T was amber, the identifying color for Drop Zone A. The T panels meant for Drop Zone C, at Hiesville, were red; Drop Zone D, outside Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, was to have lit up green. As a redundant signal to the incoming pilots and navigators, the bottom panel, or tail, of the T was its Morse code light. Using a telegraph key connected to the tail with a cable about eight yards long, one of the men would repeatedly blink the sequence for the letter A—a dot and a dash—so there would be no chance of a plane mistaking one DZ for another if there was some unforeseen snafu with the color panels, or in the event they were blown out by enemy fire.
    The operation wasn’t complicated, but it required Jones and his fellow signalmen to be proficient at using a new technology—or a new adaptation of technology—and to have the wits to work coolly and swiftly under tense conditions. All their long weeks at Pathfinder school in North Witham, all their arduous training jumps and rehearsals, had been designed to prepare them for a task that could take no more than ten minutes to execute from start to finish.
    The same concentrated time frame applied to assembling the Eureka equipment. Lillyman had ordered Council and Walton to mount the unit in a treetop, and they’d shimmied up its trunk as Zamanakos kept lookout on the ground. The cue for triggering the Holophanes would be the sound of the approaching transports: when the signalmen heard their engines rumbling over the horizon, they would turn them on, one operator to a panel, and then hurry out of the sudden glare to avoid enemy eyes while remaining close enough to guard them against attack. It was the responsibility of the man with the telegraph key to stay in position even under fire.
    At first, things went without a hitch for both Lillyman’s T/3s and signal operators. But that was to change in a flash—literally.
    With the T laid into position, Wilhelm’s fingers were too fast for his own good again, finding the light switch well before the transports were in earshot. He barely had time to realize what he’d done when the Holophane beamed up into the sky like a searchlight, its brightness outlining the surprised troopers near the T in stark silhouette.
    Horrified and furious at himself, Wilhelm was fumbling to turn the light back off when a series of machine-gun volleys rattled from the hedgerows. Then he heard the
whump
of mortar rounds detonating in the open field nearby.
    We’ve had it
, he told himself, swearing under his breath. How could he have done something like this again?
    Rocca, standing with him, was equally dismayed. It sounded as if half the German Army had opened up on them.
    Under increasing fire now, the signalmen stayed put near the valuable Holophanes. Their job was to do whatever they could to prevent them from being shot out. Council and Walters, meanwhile, clung to their treetop perches with the radar transmitter, using the bushy foliage for concealment.
    The machine guns kept discharging from the bushes. With his eyes focused on their muzzle flash, Lillyman weighed his orders to avoid engaging the enemy and decided he had no recourse but to make an exception. He waved two of the Pathfinders toward the hedgerow, adding, with characteristic bravado, a few words about “teaching those Krauts the error of their ways.” Then he watched the pair of troopers dash into the shadows, staying back to guard the T with the rest of his men.
    The German machine-gun nest had been dug into the ground deep in the bordering thicket. Getting as close as they dared, the troopers pulled the pins on a couple of grenades and lobbed them in its direction.
    Yards away, Lillyman heard the loud
whumph
of the detonations . . . and then the volleys stopped. Everything was suddenly quiet. He waited until he saw his men