“Must have been tough,” Stan said.
“We couldn’t hold our altitude. We lost about a thousand feet a minute and nothing the copilot and I could do would hold her up.”
“Sure, an’ you did a good job of it gettin’ in,” O’Malley praised.
“When I couldn’t talk to the crew I turned the controls over to the copilot and went aft. I got to the top turret man and told him to get the gunners together in the radio compartment. I figured we’d smack right down into the channel.” Allison fingered his pipe and stared into the fire.
“I went back to the copilot and we fought her head. She sagged in over the coast and came right on home, smoking like a torch. As we came in, we found we had a belly landing on our hands, so we skidded her in. Poor Old Sal is a mess right now.”
“Anybody hurt?” Stan asked.
“Bombardier got a piece of flak in his leg. The tail gunner had his greenhouse blown into his face and is in the hospital. I forgot to say we dumped our guns and everything else we could pry loose. I guess that saved us.” Allison leaned back. “When you fellows going to shift over? This is the real thing.”
“Sitting duck stuff,” O’Malley snorted. “You jest sit there an’ take it. You never fired a gun on the whole trip.”
“No,” Allison admitted. “But we bagged six Jerries and there was plenty of shooting. You should see my boys work those 50’s.”
“We aim to stir up a bit of excitement,” Stan said.