Hell over Berlin - Décimo Círculo del Infierno

🇪🇦 spanish version

1944.

I think they've shot down half the planes we've sent. If it's any consolation, it's that this, the plane we're flying, is an improved version - the B-17F.

We are over German skies. Our B-17 squadron is only a few miles from our target: the Focke-Wulf factory. A German aircraft factory in the vicinity of Berlin. An attack on the plant itself is a step into the lion's den. That's why the high command has decided that we should do it under such adverse conditions.

It's night, it's foggy and we're in the clouds. The strange storm of lights and colors that we have just passed through has scattered all the planes that made up the squadron. Some have not been so lucky and have been struck by electric lightning. They burn like torchs as their occupants are sucked to their deaths. A nightmare we face alone. To reach our destination we can only be guided by the expertise of our navigators and radio control between the squadron's ships. However, our navigator has no reference, and the radio doesn't seem to be working since we came through the storm.

There are ten of us in the B-17 crew: pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, flight mechanic, radio operator, tail gunner, belly gunner and two side gunners.

The pilot was Officer Dante Anchor. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for bringing back his battered aircraft converted into a flying coffin. Only he came back alive. He had only transported corpses back. The rear gun turret was missing along with its operator. The upper turret was missing along with the armament and the upper half of its operator.

His new co-pilot, John "Frog" Stevens, was accompanying us on this mission. Why the nickname "Frog" for our co-pilot? I know I haven't had much opportunity to check it out, but, having heard him a few times, it's a fair nickname. This man has a peculiar way of snoring. Some people sound like a bear and some people, like "Frog", sound like a frog.

- “J.C., tell us where we are,” sounds Anchor's voice in the headset.

Sergeant J.C. Winston was the navigator of the aircraft. His full name was Jebediah Christopher Winston. A man born in a Christian community in Georgia. A devout and talented illustrator, he substituted a pin-up on the nose of our plane for a skeleton with a gunshot embedded in its forehead, sailing a wooden boat at the lieutenant's request. Only Anchor smiled at the sight of it, on the others it projected a bad omen.

- “The storm has given us more twists and turns than my mother's bread dough,” J.C. replied, shuffling maps. “I haven't a clue. We're supposed to be taking flak by now. If the coordinates are correct, we're about to reach the Focke-Wulf factory in Berlin.”

And yet, JC was not as fanatical as the two Amish friends: Ezekiel Smucker and Jahaziah Brenneman. Suspicious because of their German ancestry and because the rest of their community were conscientious objectors. At the first call-up, the rest of us crowded the enlistment stands, while the Amish communities became a real ethical problem for their neighbors. They refused to fertilize the fields of Europe with their dead.

Yet they made the decision to flee their community to enlist. How and why is a story that has yet to be told.

- “Murphy, confirm position and start dropping bombs," echoes Anchor's voice over the headset. And let's get the hell out of here.

- “Sir," J.C. replied, "the coordinates are correct, but there is no factory here. There's no trace of one. These are normal dwellings. We are above Berlin itself. I know it seems impossible. But... but...”

- “But what?” -interrupted Officer Anchor.

- “Sir, this is Smucker," came the voice of one of the Amish over the radio. “I've spoken to my partner. My ancestors wouldn't forgive me for bombing innocent people. I don't think we should drop those bombs unless we're sure they're our target.”

- “Sir. Brenneman. I confirm what Smucker said.”

Nathan Romero was our radio operator. A Texan of such distant Latin origin that he didn't understand a word of Spanish.

- “Sir. Romero here. Before leaving San Antonio, I made an offering to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Lady would never forgive you, sir. We can't do this. The radio is fried. Nobody knows we're here. J.C. isn't sure that we have under us is our target. The city of Berlin beneath us is nothing like the Berlin we know. There's not a single building down! It's full of light, full of life!”

Ted Glenn the tail gunner. I didn't think he was fit to be in the army. I saw the man as very small, but that's why he was perfect for the tail turret - a claustrophobic space for anyone else. In that small, gunned-up ball there was the most defenseless feeling in the whole plane. A transparent hemisphere with great visibility. Yes, but the feeling was of being exposed on all sides to a flurry of Messerschmitt1s that were going to hit us hard when we were over the German sky.

- “Hey, officer! Ted here. Fuck those guys. You're in charge. They're the enemy. If they're not today, tomorrow they'll put a gun in your hand and kill your mother”

- “Hey. This isn't a fucking democracy," came the voice of Officer Anchor, "I'm the one in charge. Drop the bombs, goddamn it! I don't give a shit that this Berlin doesn't look like the Berlin you think you know! Berlin is Berlin!”

Billy Sanders, who we all called Po'boy, because of his fondness for shrimp sandwiches that were given to poor children during the crisis and his New Orleans background, was the mechanic on board and in charge of the dorsal turret.

- “Listen boss, I'm Po’boy, I agree with you, this is a war. No one's going to give you any grief because you killed Germans who weren't your turn today. If it's not us they'll die from another bomb, or starvation or who knows. Maybe Hitler himself will kill them for being Jews, communists or for any other reason.”

Alessandro Di Meo. Ventral turret-gunner. A Chicago spaghetti. Before anyone else thinks it, I'll say it myself. No. He had nothing to do with the Mafia. One of the best men I ever knew. He was always willing to help anybody. If this man had belonged to a criminal gang, he'd be either a psychopath or the most useless of all gang members.

- “Sir, this is Di Meo," came the voice of the spaghetti. “I think what my colleagues have said is based on religious beliefs or a nihilistic attitude. Sir, there is no such thing as moral facts. We are not here to assess right or wrong. With all the facts in the world, we each believe in a reality that is not. It is only the reality constructed by our poor data about nature. I know you are aware; we are all aware, that we don't have any data about reality now. It doesn't exist, that thing down there doesn't exist, we only exist with our decision to drop the bombs or not. And it doesn't matter what that is, there are only the orders, the training. We do a job. Moral judgement has in common with religious judgement a belief in realities that do not exist. They can only interpret what they have in front of them with respect to a culture that they carry with them. Which they don't even know how it came to them. Moral judgement, like religious judgement, corresponds to a level of ignorance in which the concept of the real is still lacking, there is no distinction between the real and the imaginary. In this, without this capacity, we are only talking about nonsense. Of imaginings. Of pure speculation of truth. Let's do the work we came here to do. Let's drop the bombs.”

There was a moment of silence in which Anchor rethought his decision. In which I saw Di Meo as the psychopath he was. With his overwhelming logic. I imagined him killing a stranger head-on, with a gun in his hand, back in Chicago. For a job. Because it was a job.

- “J.C., tell us what you see,” Anchor asked again. “We can't go back with this weight. Murphy, ready to drop the load on the position.”

Brad Murphy. That's me. Your new bombardier/forward gunner. I know they looked at me with suspicion as this was my first real combat operation. My last few days of training had been over the British sea, dropping my charges on buoys floating in the sea. With a good enough success rate according to my instructors. I knew that what was needed was to fill the new crews anyway. My scores on the targets were not good. In the end, the man who had his hand on the button that would drop our deadly payload.

The flight did not start well. Already in my presentation when we were on the ground. There was Lieutenant Anchor, on the tarmac, giving us the harangue before we left. Frog mimicked him from behind, pacing as if it were Hitler himself giving the welcome speech, but with Anchor's voice. The lieutenant turned and caught him in his mockery. Frog saluted him with a raised hand, fascist style.

- “Of course, Frog, how can you expect these men to take us seriously if you don't stop clowning around,” he tried to be serious with him, but he couldn't.

- “Men,” I thought to myself, “none of us were even 25 years old. We were just entering adulthood. Only a few years separated us from jumping puddles, from bike rides. From the first brushes with the opposite sex.”

Sergeant JC was married and had a daughter. So was Romero, from the age of 19. The rest of us were just leaving behind girlfriends or romantic projects that had remained promises: "When I get back, we'll get married.

- “Okay, Brad Murphy. Our new bomber," he pointed at me.

- “Now I get the special rookie talk," I looked at Lieutenant Anchor curiously as he approached with a bottle and glass in his hand.

- “Go ahead," he said, pouring a brew into the glass as he walked towards me. “Drink your initiation drink. Today you will become a man when you kill hundreds of those German pigs.”

- “No, thank you," I said, putting my hand forward. I don't drink.

- “Come on, let's go. One gulp," he gestured to hold the glass to my mouth.

I pulled my arm away with the glass, so unluckily for me that I spilled all the liquid and stepped back.

- “No, thank you, sir.”

He court-martialed me and shot me on the spot with his eyes.

- “Drink this. Drink this right now, I said. That's a fucking order.”

I was just backing away step by step with my hands up, until he grabbed me by the sleeve of my jacket. He stuck his face to mine and bared his teeth.

- “I said drink it! Now,” Anchor continued, "agreed?"

With a jerk, I let go of the sleeve Lieutenant Anchor was holding. I turned to try to run away but the Major tripped me, and I fell to the ground.

- “Come on. It's just a little drink,” Frog held my shoulders to the ground.

- “Now all in one gulp,” the lieutenant accompanied his words with a gesture, as if he were the one drinking. With one hand he tipped the glass over and with the other he opened my mouth. I struggled, but Frog wouldn't let me move.

- “Your superior is giving you an order,” said Major Murphy, spitting his words in my face.

- “Thanks for giving me a hand, Dad,” I thought to myself.

Yes, Major Murphy. Didn't I tell you about him?

Yes. He’s, my father. Gunnery Major Fred Murphy. What's Gunnery got to do with an airplane? Nothing. Major Murphy doesn't bother anyone with his presence, except me, because he's not here. My father's been dead for eight years. An artery that couldn't hold out any longer, or something like that, we were told. What really killed my father was alcohol. That's why I don't drink.

But I can't talk to anyone about this. If they found out that I see and talk to my father who has been dead for eight years, I would be grounded.

♠ ♠ ♠

I looked towards JC. The navigator looked away to his instruments. We still didn't even know if the Berlin were glimpsing was the Berlin we were going to bomb.

But there were the lights. The enemy. The work.

-” Well, we'll vote, then,” said Lieutenant Dante Anchor. “Let's pretend this is a fucking democracy. Who wants to drop the bombs and who doesn't? Who wants to do their job and who doesn't?”

As expected, for Billy Sanders, Po'boy, Ted Glenn, Alessandro Di Meo, John "Frog" Stevens. And against J.C. Winston, Ezekiel Smucker and Jahaziah Brenneman and Nathan Romero. Lieutenant Anchor abstained with a mocking face. The final decision rested in my hands.

Impossible as it is, I see all my comrades at their posts, the fuselage and the canopies blurred, revealing faces with chins to their chests, reflecting shame, doubt, fear and, perhaps, hope.

I swallow my breath. This is not right. I didn't sign up to kill without thinking. To obey without question. My father looks at me intently and asks me to make the right decision.

- “No,” I reply.

My comrades remain mute and begin to crumble like windblown sand figures. All except for the lieutenant and my father. My father smiles and the air stop at the B-17F aircraft. In the upgraded B-17F that flies over Berlin in the year 2021.

It all makes sense... The strange storm that had somehow inexplicably transported us almost 80 years into the future. Lieutenant Anchor eager for an answer he should have taken alone. Dante Anchor, an anagram of Charon, the ferryman from hell. The pinup on the bomber's fuselage is a skull with not a shot in the forehead, but a coin. A coin to pay the toll to hell or to heaven. The fate of my comrades and myself depended on my decision. We had been dead since we were hit by the lightning of the storm.

The bomber was our purgatory.

Bomber Briefing report.

Once again living up to its reputation, the bomber returns with only one survivor. Lieutenant Anchor. After repairs, the bomber will be assigned to a new mission at the end of the month...

SafeCreative: 2109279363712

If you liked the story, please leave us a review under comments!