PROLOGUE
The air explodes with shredding metal and pain as a huge fireball rips through Turner Turnbull's C-47.
Above Sicily, planes crack in half or burst into flame and hundreds of American paratroopers tumble into the sky.
"Our Navy is shooting at us! They think we're Germans!"
Turnbull either jumps or is pushed out of his plane. Miraculously, his 'chute opens and he drifts slowly amid explosions.
What's left of his C-47 smashes into the ground with an enormous boom. American ships behind him fire away at the rest of the Airborne force.
"What a horrific idea to fly over our own fleet," he thinks. "A nervous gunner must have mistaken us for Germans."
The ground swiftly rises and Turnbull lands in a jumble, falling backwards across the uneven terrain. A gust catches his 'chute before he desperately slashes his risers with his fighting knife.
Then all is quiet. Turnbull's ears ring and his clothes and gear are burnt and torn. The countryside around him, however, is unnaturally still.
Presently he begins to move, hopefully in the right direction. He has no idea where he is but he must find his men - to look after his platoon and to lead them to their objective.
For thirty minutes, he crawls through the low scrub, straining eyes and ears for fellow paratroopers or Germans.
Then shadows abruptly shift, melting and reforming in the moonlight.
"Click-chat!" - the unmistakable sound of a weapon being switched from safe to fire.
A thick German voice calls out, “Wer is da?!”
Cautiously, the American reaches to his grenade belt, then readies to throw an Mk II grenade.
Then the Germans fire and a stabbing pain sears Turnbull's shoulder. In the same breath, Turnbull flips the grenade forward.
Turnbull throws himself down as the explosion shatters the night and shrapnel rains everywhere. Many weapons fill the air with violence and Turnbull's world fades to black...
Much later, he wakes up in an American aid station. His mouth is dry and cracked and his mind floats from the morphine used to dull his pain.
A medic comes over.
"Well, you were hit bad, Lieutenant, but I think you're going to be okay. Your side is pretty torn up, and your ribs are broken, but you will live. In fact, you'll probably get a ticket home, if you want one."
Turner nods, taking the news quietly, unsure of his own reaction. Strangely, he does not feel relief.
In fact, he thinks of his paratroopers, the men whom he should be leading.
"They are are out there, now, fighting. Am I letting them down by not being with them..."
"How many of them are alive? And what about the mission?"
These and a thousand other questions crowd his mind. But most of all, he feels anger for letting himself get injured and for not being where he is needed.
Turner Turnbull knows that despite his pain there is no way he can take that ticket home. There is more work to be done.
