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65 Chapter 7 Spinazzola, Italy The flight to Marrakech was through dismal weather, cloudy with bouts of rain that lashed the fuselage and pelted the small windscreen. The Liberator yawed and pitched through the turbulence while the two pilots held onto the yoke and the rest of the crew grabbed onto anything handy. They were all feeling miserable as they neared the coast of northwestern Africa, and uncertain as to when they might actually make landfall on the African continent. Then a small break in the clouds allowed them to glimpse waves slamming against the shore near Casablanca, so they were able to mark the time of their arrival over land. Marrakech is in central Morocco, founded by Arabs as a regional capital a thousand years ago, and often described as exotic by visitors. But finding the ancient city was not going to be easy. The weather was no better inland, and they had to be concerned with flying too far. The Atlas Mountains were just east of Marrakech; some of their peaks rose to thirteen thousand feet. Darden and Lamar were flying blind, using instruments that depended on a less-than-precise system of radio signals that tended to ebb and distort as the storm wrapped itself over the earth. Finally, Lamar was able to locate a signal and “fly the beam” to the air base. They broke through the clouds as they descended to the Red City. Minarets and the ancient clay-brick Kasbah were visible to the crew as they came over the old city, along with the bewildering walled Medina with its maze of narrow alleys and overhanging balconies. The vast open square of the Djemma al Fna and the minaret of the Koutoubia mosque were clearly visible, although their names were unknown to the crew. They touched down, emerging into the heat of late summer in North Africa. The smells from the souqs were faintly evident even over the pervasive odor of aviation fuel. Lamar watched a small crowd of men in jallabas, wearing their inevitable yellow Ali Baba babouches with the curled toes, sitting near the runway. They 66 The Final Mission of Bottoms Up were intently breaking rocks roughly the size of basketballs into fist-sized stones, filling two metal cans which periodically were emptied into low areas of the hastily-extended runway. The image stayed with him, these Berbers working so diligently. With their long robes and headgear, they were as distant from rural Missouri as anything Lee could imagine. Had they been pressed into service , or had they volunteered, grateful for the opportunity for work? He never learned, but it was evidence that the war touched lives far beyond the khakiclad swarms of soldiers that were so ubiquitous in the States. They spent the night in Marrakech, the officers housed in a former French Foreign Legion building. That evening, they pondered the mysteries of the bathroom facilities. After much discussion, the lieutenants decided that the strange device was a bidet, something one of them had heard would be found in the ultra-chic, expensive hotels of New York City. Now that Over There was Over Here, the crew created their Short Snorters. This was one of those traditions that seems hard to understand from a distance of sixty or seventy years: each crewman took out a dollar bill, and each signed everyone’s currency. Thereafter, in any bar anywhere as long as they were in the service, anyone could demand to see their “Short Snorter.” Failure to produce it meant that they had to buy drinks for the entire party. For Lee, who drank almost no alcohol, this was not a probability, but he went along with the custom as a form of future protection. The next morning they departed for Tunis, flying over the now-visible peaks of the Atlas, and landing at a former German air base. For once, all the buildings were permanent, with no sign of the sea of tents so evident at the previous airdromes at which they had landed. To one side, a pile of wrecked German and Italian aircraft marked the passage of ownership from the Axis to the Allies. All transient crews were supposed to be restricted to base, a fact that rankled Lee when he saw men of the permanent party routinely walking through the front gate to savor the night life of Tunis. Lee, never before one to rebel or to flaunt authority, now encouraged the others to join him in...

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