Byrd's School of English Fish
Dead in the water
Nelson stood near the front yard until the flames died. The town constable and two neighbors consoled him until the headmaster and the chaplin arrived. Together they walked around the ruins of his home and held Nelson's elbows to keep him from collapsing. His knees buckled when he saw a a shredded patch of his wife's bathrobe. At the back steps of his house, where large sandstone blocks once formed a path to the pond, he teetered, gasped for air and hung on the headmaster's shoulder.
Every fish was dead. Several gallons of aviation fuel trickled onto the surface of the pond and caught fire, heating the water to a boil. Hissing at the edge of the water was what remained of landing gear from Oberst Lieutenant Jivonic's bomber. It burned down to the surface of the water into a half donut of melted rubber, the submerged portion of the tire unscathed. Burnt latex crusted the surface of the water in puddles. Several fish were fused with the tire near the surface, their corpses caught in cooling plastic lava. Near the tire a blackened still smoldering lump of something caught his attention. He took a step down into the backyard and groaned loud enough to startle the chaplin. The water preserved more than the sunken half of the landing gear. His eyes locked on submerged unburnt hair on her forehead. She was charred nearly beyond recognition. The headmaster could not make out her shape at first, covered as it was by pieces of rock, wood and plaster. Shards of broken glass, brick and airplane aluminum pierced her torso in several places. Her left leg bent at the knee in the wrong direction over a plank from the curved bridge that should have lead to the island. Her right leg was missing. The chaplin tripped over it as he turned to lead the headmaster and Nelson away from her body.
Sky
The chaplin gave him the rectory of the school for as long as he needed. He slept for a day then returned to his home. During the day he sat outside of what was left of his house and kept his eyes on the clouds and the horizon. Any movement in his peripheral vision made him yank his head skyward. He perched on a mound of bricks with a loaded over under shotgun on his lap. At the first sign of aircraft he lifted the gun and spun wildly searching for targets. It did not matter if it was allied or enemy, he fired at whatever was manmade and airborne.The lawn was covered in a gravel of empty shotgun shells. A few days later his shooting stopped. The neighbors were afraid he might begin moving up and down the street firing indiscriminately. They gathered and decided to take action.
No one, not even his cousin at the farm supply store, would sell him shells.
"I'm sorry Nelson, I can't help you. The Home Gaurd came and confiscated all of my ammunition for the War effort. Can't says I blame 'em, we're going to need every shot if the Gerries try to land. I do have more lantern fuel."
A lack of ammunition did not prevent him from yanking furiously at the double-set triggers until his fingers were sore. He bent down, without looking away from the sky, felt around for spent shells, grabbed them and jammed them into the breach and clicked away. When it was quiet he collected shot-shell casings into a mound next to a lawn chair salvaged from his backyard. At night he used his lantern to help him scour the ground for more ammunition, or study an aircraft identification book lent to him by a ensign in the Royal Observation Corp who knew the headmaster. Everyone noticed Nelson could not distinguish between the Nazis and the RAF.
Antiaircraft positions, ten miles away on the coast, flooded the sky with proximity fused shells in salvos so dense they kept Nelson awake. This artificial thunder lured him away from his home.
Nelson appeared at one of the batteries in the middle of the night and shouted cheers to the crews manning the guns. They could not hear him. Finally something could scar and even destroy Goering's planes. He screamed with joy until he lost his voice. When all he could do was mouth "kill them" he began gesturing wildly at flashes overhead. He pointed a calloused trigger finger skyward and wept. For three weeks he encouraged the loaders, spotters and anyone even remotely associated with the thundering machines that swept the skies clean. He lost his voice several times shouting thanks to the guns.
On the evening of September 5th a loader injured himself on one of the guns. Nelson lept through barbed wire and over sand bags to take his place. He knew if he did not, there would be an enormous hole in the defensive screen their gun produced. The other gunners, startled by his presence, were quickly impressed by how well he performed. His timing was perfect.
Over the roar of the guns one of the gunners shouted at him.
"Hey, where'd you learn how to do this?"
"I'm a teacher at St. Alban's."
"That's not what I was asking. What I said was..."
"I've been watching. It's not that hard."
The crew began to worry when his fingers passed dangerously close to the breaches of the guns. Everyone there knew, first hand, what the thrusting steal of a recoiling 3.7 inch cannon could do to fingers. It was difficult enough to dodge the searing hot brass casings belched into the muddy ground of the emplacement. They decided, with reservations from the senior gunners, to keep him in their crew until a trained loader could make his way from the base nearby. Nelson performed well, and with a sense of purpose the other gunners recognized as, "a bit too much."
Even as a loader he never stopped shouting at the sky when planes approached. Three days later, underneath a thick cluster of planes crossing the Channel, the overheating gun Nelson eagerly fed jammed shut. He became enraged and began throwing anything he could lift. First he tossed his helmet. Then his gloves. Then the assistant gunner's helmet. When everything within reach was pitched over the sand bags, Nelson (to the dismay of his crew) hefted a primed shell into the air. It rolled over the sand bags and down the cliff at the edge of the battery, exploding when it struck a rock outcropping. Chunks of dirt, grass and sandbags sprayed into his emplacement coating the guns and gun crews with grit. The crew threw Nelson out and forbid him from coming closer than thirty yards to the barbed wire.
Nelson obeyed, but did not return to the rectory. He sulked, without sleeping, for five days on the perimeter of the battery, tossing rocks at whatever targets the cannons picked up. Rain forced him to retreat and construct a small hut out of a borrowed pancho, a wooden pallette from a supply truck and a decaying mound of driftwood. The gun crew worried about him when he did not take his normal position near the coiled barbed wire for two days. Despite how close he came to killing them they still wished him well. When the rain stopped they found him unconscious and face down in mud. The shelter he built was gone. He wrapped the pancho around his shotgun to sheild it from rain. Both barrells were jammed with the only ammunition he had access to, rocks. They hefted him into a jeep and drove him to the nearest hospital. They told a nurse they didn't know his name. All the knew about him was that he wandered up to their emplacement from the school in Newbourne.
Recovery
The staff was not sure if he would recover. His fever remained high for two days. When he woke up, three days later, the headmaster was sitting in a chair nearby.
"You can't keep doing this. They told me if you return to the coast again they'll arrest you. I do not blame them."
"I do not care."
The headmaster leaned forward in his chair and pushed the stout silver cross around his neck into his shirt pocket. He was not sure how to convince Nelson to return to St. Alban's where a community of his friends were ready to help him.
"When are you going to come back to the school? Everyone wants you back. We've left her classroom as it was. Mrs. Wellingham is doing her best to be a good replacement. She promised not to touch paintings until you return."
"I am not going back."
"What do you want to do when they let you out of here?"
"I do not know. I will never so much as look into a classroom again."
The headmaster was disappointed, but he understood. Nelson and his wife had been so closely tied to St. Alban's that the other teachers at the school joked about renaming the campus "St. Byrds Nest."
"I can talk to someone about getting you assigned to the Royal Observation Corps. You would still be able to shoot at... to help keep England safe." The silver cross hanging from the headmaster's neck pendulumed out of his shirt pocket toward Nelson's bed then back.
Nelson rolled over and burried his face into his pillow. The black and white cross painted on the back of the JU 87 slammed through his roof. His door blew across the street. Debris sprayed across his lawn. His wife vanished in a cloud of wood, fire and aircraft aluminum. He moaned and bit into the pillow hard enough to cramp the muscles in his jaw. His breathing slowed. A damp spot formed at the edges of mouth, discoloring the pillow case enough for the headmaster to see it.
"I'm sorry."
The headmaster left, placing a card with an address on it next to the hospital bed by the tattered aircraft identification manual Nelson had memorized before collapsing near his pancho hut.
Two days later Nelson agreed to join the Royal Observation Corps as soon as the hospital released him.
Continued.....