"I don't think we can get out of it—at least I can't."
"You can, and you will. You've got to get over this Hafner business. He killed my mother, Bandy, and I don't hate him as much as you do. He'll get his. But he's ruining us. This is the best—almost the first—lovemaking we've had since the Hindenburg."
He watched her moving about. Lately she had become compulsively neat. She gathered up their garments from where they had been strewn and walked around the bedroom hanging up their clothes, placing their underthings in neat little piles, knowing that he was admiring her, that her movements were arousing him again. He watched her breasts bobble as she moved, her hips lifting as she bent over to smooth the sheets. He pulled her to him, began kissing her again, murmuring in her ear that he loved her, that they wouldn't go, that they would get out of flying, and she responded once again.
They were lying contentedly together, fully agreed that they would start over, that neither one would leave, no matter what anyone said, when at nine o'clock, the phone rang. She ran into the living room and talked briefly to Rose, the woman who lived next door.
When she returned, she said, "I've got to get dressed. Rose's child is sick and she wants me to look at her."
He nodded.
She looked around the room, under the bed.
"Where are my step-ins? I had them right here."
He shrugged.
She looked at him closely.
"What have you got in your mouth?"
She jumped on him, plumped his cheeks. He coughed, laughing, and pulled the shell-pink step-ins out.
"Delicious, as always."
"You absolute goof! When I get back, I'm going to ravish you again."
*
Seville, Spain/December 10, 1938
The war gushed over Spain like a rising tide, the angry rivulets of flame and fire destroying fields and homes alike. What had begun as localized uprisings, sporadic militant relics of the monarchy, had coalesced into a major upheaval when Franco had brought in the savage Moroccan tabores, troops whose color, skin, and reputation for artful dismemberment boosted hate and fear to hysterical levels. The positions plotted on the maps shifted rapidly, as Spaniard battled Spaniard and the Loyalist government forces were shoved to the east. The coming of costly friends—Italians and Germans to the Nationalist "rebels," Russians to the Loyalists—changed the black internecine bitterness into a miniature world war.
"Sunny Spain my arse! I was warmer in the backseat of a Rumpler over France in the winter of 1918 than I was in that Junkers!" No one spoke; if Major General Hugo von Sperrle, commander of the Condor Legion, said it was cold, it was unquestionably cold. A brutal face—eyes like oysters sunk in a souffle—and a harsh, insistent laugh that demanded agreement, not humor, made him frighteningly formidable. He stamped his feet and swung his arms: "Well, Richthofen, whom have you got to talk to me? I want to hear the bad news directly from the source."
He moved with surprising grace to the battered table that served as a desk. Behind him was the obligatory picture of Hitler. On the wall opposite a crucifix hung, a withered bit of palm still curled behind it from a long-ago Palm Sunday.
Sperrle's chief of staff, Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, had shot down eight Allied airmen flying in his famous cousin's flying circus in the World War. For Sperrle, he had more than the usual pilot's contempt for an observer. Silently, he took in Sperrle's bulk, the "mark of the Prussian" curl of fat about his neck, the diamond-studded signet ring sinking in an ocean of flesh. Worst of all, Sperrle was crude, with deplorable table manners. But von Richthofen was more ambitious than fastidious, and he had the delicate task of informing the general that the principal German fighter in the Luftwaffe, the Heinkel He-51, was outclassed by Russian airplanes.
"I've asked Colonel Hafner to brief you, Herr General."
Von Richthofen had not so much chosen Hafner as had him thrust upon him.
"Hafner? He's Udet's pretty boy, isn't he? I knew him in the last war."
"I don't know if Udet likes him or hates him. This assignment could be a plum or a death sentence. It doesn't matter—he knows his airplanes."
Von Richthofen's uncertainty was compounded by Udet's own ambiguous status. One heard one moment that he was Goering's right-hand man, another that he was on the way out. So von Richthofen elected to treat Hafner at arm's length, as just another fighter pilot, ignoring all the political implications.
There was another very good reason for choosing Hafner to brief Sperrle—his huge size. This very important meeting could grow unpleasant, and Hafner was as tall as Sperrle and twice as muscular. It wouldn't come to a shoving match, of course, but Sperrle was a bully, and bullies preferred smaller men as victims.
He signaled to his orderly to bring Hafner in. They went through the formalities, discussing where they had flown and fought in the World War. Then Sperrle said, "Hafner, tell me straight out. Is the problem the Heinkels or the pilots? Don't try to cover for your friends."
"Herr General, the pilots are superb. But the Russians are flying a better airplane."
"Nonsense, it's just a copy of an old American Curtiss fighter. I've read the intelligence reports about it."
"Herr General, you have read the reports, but have you ever seen one on your ass, with four streams of bullets coming at you? Have you ever seen our shitty seven-point-nine-millimeter bullets bouncing off their armor plate?"
Sperrle's monocle popped off. Von Richthofen stepped forward as Hafner continued, "It is quite stupid to say that it is a copy of a Curtiss. The Russian I-15 is also a radial-engine biplane, but those are the only similarities. It is a far better airplane than the Heinkel, and we are soon not going to be able to cross the battle line unless we get something better. You'll recall that the airplanes were shipped in packing crates marked 'Furniture.' We'd have been better off if there had been furniture inside, rather than the Heinkels!"
Von Richthofen was appalled. He wanted Hafner to be frank, not belligerent. His time in America had made him undisciplined.
"And, for the last month, they've been using a monoplane fighter with a retractable landing gear, very fast. We can't even engage them."
As Hafner spoke, Sperrle replaced his monocle, realizing that his only way out was to laugh, to treat this swinish behavior as a joke.
"Ah, enough, I believe you. And what about the Russian pilots?"
"They are quite good, not as well trained as we are, but with those airplanes they don't have to be. The Spanish are flying them as well. We'd better get some Messerschmitts down here, and soon, or borrow some Fiat CR-32s from the Italians."
Sperrle's monocle popped again. He could see Goering's reaction if he recommended borrowing Fiats from the Italians.
"Very well. All the 109s we have are experimental aircraft so far, as you know. But we'll bring three of those down, until the production deliveries start. It's not much, but it's the best we can do. Dare I ask you about the bombers?"
"The Ju-52s are slow, but as long as we can protect them, they'll do the job. But we won't be able to fly protective formations for long. The Russians are too powerful."
Von Richthofen leaned forward. "Will the Messerschmitts be adequate?"
Hafner turned to him. "I think so, against their biplanes, of course. I'm not sure about their monoplanes. They are very fast, but don't seem to be too maneuverable. The Messerschmitts will help only for a year or two, anyway, until the Russians bring down something better."
He turned and stood at attention, thumbs placed precisely on his trouser seams, eyes riveted just beyond Sperrle's bulbous head. "Herr General, what comes after the Messerschmitt?" he asked.
Sperrle shot a look of warning to von Richthofen. Enough was enough! Von Richthofen smoothly intervened, "Thank you, Bruno, for your customary frankness. You may be sure that what is coming after the Messerschmitt will be quite adequate. You may go."
Hafner saluted and did an about-face. On his way out he raised his eyebrows to the aide holding
the door, as if to say, "Court-martial or promotion—who cares?"
"The remark about what comes after the Messerschmitt, von Richthofen! What did he mean by that? The 109 is brand-new, not even in squadron service yet, and he's talking about what comes after?"
"Ja. It's a problem that Udet has as well. He's quite right—something should already be on the drawing boards. The problem is that Hafner has an interest in a certain airplane, one he's shown Focke-Wulf. He is a somewhat entrepreneurial lieutenant colonel!"
Sperrle shrugged and told his adjutant to arrange for him to speak to Kurt Tank at Focke-Wulf. Tank was as much of a genius as Willy Messerschmitt; he'd tell him what to make of this Hafner fellow.
*
Over New Mexico/January 3, 1937
She was a fury, wrapped in passion concealed in rage, and hidden by hubris. Patty Morgan Dompnier Bandfield leaned forward in the cockpit of her Beech racer, trying to will the recalcitrant instruments into proper order.
Bandy had broken his word, leaving the morning after the night they first had the violent argument, then made violent love. He had said he had to go to some secret briefings at Wright Field. Now she knew that he was somewhere in New York. She didn't know where, but she would wring the truth from Caldwell and find him. He was going to Spain, after he had promised—sworn!—not to, and after she had promised to remove herself from the Earhart trip.
She would have killed him easily, if she could have loved him to death. In her heart was an ominous fear that he would not return, that he would cross the ocean to die in Spain, to be left a burned and jumbled mass, crumpled in the wreckage of an airplane, just as Stephan had crossed an ocean to die in the race.
TROPHY FOR EAGLES 411
And to ice the cake, the flight was going sour. She had been averaging 240 mph. Now she was at sixteen thousand feet over New Mexico, between cloud layers, deliberately slowed down to 150 mph. A sinister quiver running through the yellow Beechcraft exactly matched the oscillation of the tachometer, now nervously buzzing from 2,000 to 2,300 rpm every thirty seconds.
She'd left Los Angeles, intending to confront Bandy and set a transcontinental record in the process. Until twenty minutes ago, the flight had been perfect. Patty corrected course angrily, unhappy that she'd allowed her preoccupation with the tachometer to let her drift twenty degrees off. She reduced power a little more to bleed the airspeed back to 140 mph. The record was out of the question, but she still had to be in New York by the 5th, if she was to see Bandy before he left. She would stop him if she could; if she could not, he would go warm with her love. As much as she needed to see him, she now needed a hole in the undercast even more, a brief blessed spot of light where she could let down if she had to.
There was a faster surge, and the tachometer picked up to 2,400 rpm, before subsiding to 1,900. Patty reached up and pulled the propeller lever back. She hated to touch it, afraid that any change would make things worse.
Nothing happened until she reduced power again. The engine sagged, then surged, the rpm bobbing back and forth, until the pointer pegged itself at 2,600, the sound of the freewheeling propeller singing back through the windscreen. She glanced down at the map, then back out the windscreen, desperately trying to spot a hole in the clouds.
The propeller whine went up an octave and culminated in a shuddering jolt that jerked the airplane almost sideways and sent her head clattering against the cockpit wall. Half the prop sailed into the New Mexico skies. Unbalanced, the massive engine lunged convulsively, wrenching away from the mounts Bandy had welded with such care. The big Pratt & Whitney's lurch to the right sent the cowling whipping back over the wing, tearing the yellow fabric into shreds. The now useless engine dangled halfway to one side, a massive derelict forward rudder.
Don't let me die! Let me get to him! she thought, instinctively pulling the throttle back and switching the magneto off, pointless reactions since her horsepower had just been transformed to junk metal. The Beechcraft, normally so stable, began an aimless yawing descent, instrument readings on the panel spinning wildly.
"Mother," she said, the image of Charlotte fighting the controls of the bomber adding to the choking fear gripping her throat. She forced herself to try to save herself as her fear turned into an insistent anger that the full force of her left leg was not enough to halt the biplane's relentless skid to the right. The agonized airplane wanted to plunge straight down, despite her full back pressure on the stick. She had already run in all the available trim, and there was nothing she could do that would bring the disfigured nose up. The airspeed increased to 160, then 170. At the higher airspeeds she regained some control authority, and the rate of descent stabilized at seven hundred feet per minute.
Her arms were aching and her left leg quivered from the strain so badly that she brought her right leg into play, standing with both feet on the left rudder pedal. The corkscrew spiral moderated to a wide, skidding turn to the right.
Patty reached over and pulled her chute toward her. She was wearing the harness, and forced the connecting rings of the pack into place. She swung over in her seat, forcing the door open. The Beech swung downward with a dreamlike intensity, a maddened runaway creature determined to scrub her off against a mountain as a horse rubs a rider off against a tree. The hands on the altimeter rushed through ten thousand feet. She knew the ground below was at least five thousand feet high, and the mountains might reach to nine. Her legs still held full left rudder, slowing the turn to about two degrees per second. The cloud layer engulfed her momentarily in mist, then dissolved. She sobbed in relief when the snow-dusted mountain peaks appeared below. They seemed to reach up beseechingly even as they spun in a flat circle around her.
Patty slacked off pressure on the rudder, and the airplane whipped to the right. She let it turn a full circle, then led in with full two-leg pressure on the left rudder pedal. It straightened momentarily and she forced herself out the door into the slipstream, which pulled her away and free.
Don't know how high I am, she-thought, pulling the ripcord, and accepted gladly the wrenching pain of the opening shock. Moments later, she saw the bright glow of the Beechcraft exploding as it struck the ground. Her legs hit pine branches and she hurtled through, hands crossed over her face, wondering where she was, if she would survive.
The grasping hand of the parachute canopy enfolded the top of a pine tree. She sensed the tree's indignation as it bent almost double, then jerked her upright like a broken marionette. She bounced up and down, not certain if she was alive, where she was, or if she would spend the rest of her life tucked in some New Mexico pine tree like a forgotten Christmas ornament. None of it mattered. Bandy would be gone to Spain and never know that she had sought him, that she had tried to stop him, that she had forgiven his going.
She looked around in the darkness. There was a glow not far away, a farmhouse. Then she saw headlights coming, someone probably looking for the airplane. The lights grew larger, and a truck came around the curve, skidding to a halt as its headlights illuminated her.
An Indian got out.
"Are you alive?"
"Yes. Thank you for coming."
"I'll get a ladder. Are you hurt?"
"I don't know. Thank you for coming."
He went back to the truck, and then stopped and yelled, "Don't go away. I'll be right back."
She laughed until it hurt to do so.
***
Chapter 11
Valencia, Spain/January 11,1937
The braying of donkeys awakened him from a troubling dream; he thought for a moment that he was back on the farm in Salinas. He lay quietly, trying to figure out what was different. Then he realized that he'd slept the night through for the first time since his arrival in Spain, not kept awake by a solid lump of beans and chorizo, the inevitable main dish served to flyers at the Loyalist training station. The dream had been a puzzle—Patty and Millie had been with him in a New York restaurant. Then it clicked into place. The incredibly inedible soup last night,
made of equal parts of oil and garlic, had reminded him of the onion soup at Orteig's restaurant.
The news of Patty's crash had just reached him. Thank God she was safe. He thought wryly of the Great War term "blighty"—a minor wound just serious enough to get you out of the trenches and back to England. Her injuries—burns and bruises—sounded like a blighty that would keep her from flying with Earhart. He hoped so.
And he hoped she would have time and charity to forgive him for leaving without telling her. There was no way to explain to her, as Caldwell had "explained" to him, that failing to go would result in a court-martial. Caldwell was a friend, but a soldier, and he expected Bandy to honor his bargain. Bandfield had filled Roget in, and he hoped he would have time to talk to Patty, and perhaps convince her that his going was necessary.
So far, he had been safer entering combat than she had been at home. The great Spanish adventure had been one anticlimax after another. He had waited in the Waldorf as Caldwell had directed him to do, expecting someone like Erich von Stroheim or Peter Lorre to contact him. Instead, an attorney sought him out. Dan Schecter was a mousy little man, more clerk than spy, and he quietly gave Bandfield his passport, tickets, and a contract that said that he would be paid $1,500 a month, plus $1,000 for each enemy plane shot down. One paragraph specified that he had to take a check flight in Spain to prove his flying abilities.
He had been the only Loyalist volunteer on the ocean liner that carried him to France. A Spanish captain, Augustin Sanz Sainz, who insisted that Bandy call him Augusto, met the boat and took the American by train on a long circuitous journey to Valencia. Before leaving, the captain brought in an old friend from the Roosevelt Field days, Bert Acosta. Acosta was returning to the United States, disgruntled with the Spanish and incensed that Bandy was going to be checked out in fighters.
Trophy for Eagles Page 44
