Jump to Siegfried
UNDERGRADUATE EDITOR
Bobbing low then flying high, We thunder on through misty blackness To shattered fields, wired to snare the silken conqueror, To grey-black mounds of noiseless dead, whose crosses blur our inmost thoughts. Our motors pound and wrench us from the earth, And through callous clouds, we soar in bloody unison To cemented steel of Siegfried.
Prop blast screams a thousand wings, And jams its mighty thrusts through bulkheads of our flesh; And men quake in sleep and sense the burning tracers, Which come to scald them in their naked flight To swift and raking hell below.
Sentinels stand watch in taped, white doors And fathom the vastness that is the night, Breaking down the curtained fire, watching, waiting for the sign; While toe to heel, we press in shuffling stillness, Binding terrored hands on cold, gray anchor lines. The red light beats and airborne leaders stand among the muffled legions; Steel snaps and grates on flesh while silent fingers ferret out the silk, And captains kneel within the doors To probe the black, expectant night for markings of their purpose.
Smooth, steady airmen quit their heights, And gently dip their Trojans nearer earth While men strain upon men, and hands claw and scrape against the metal ribs. Sergeants scream "HOLD" to terrored ears .... And men press harder still, while battalions of the sky Step to padded doors that will spark their plunge to earth.
The air is still static, gasps of men edge to new crescendos; We glide lower, lower, and feel the cool presence of glistening eyes below Stretch their sullen gazes up to the dull bellies of our regimented might. The Siegfried sky has lost its smoke—will find new blood As captains turn again within the doors and slide their hands Out upon the waiting tape.
The green light breaks the crimson shaft, And wringing tension catapults us to the air; We are out and down, hurtling swift through blistering jets of fire, Screaming, swearing death to those below .... While the slap of slapping risers cracks and whips canopies of death Out upon the night.
Bill Mulligan was with the parachute infantry duringthe war and served overseas in the European Theater.
