Love for a Soldier

by Mary Jane Staples

  Major Kirsten telephoned the hotel. The hotel paged Captain Gerder while the major held on. After some minutes, Captain Gerder came on the line. The major proceeded to talk.

  Captain Gerder listened for a while, then broke in to say, ‘I’m unaware of the relevance of all this.’

  ‘I’m aware you’re unaware,’ said Major Kirsten, ‘but perhaps you’ll permit me to finish. It’s suspected that Fräulein von Feldermann is heading for Douai. Herr Captain, in the event of her making contact with you, may I have your word as a German officer that you’ll persuade her to return home?’

  ‘As a German officer, I’m required to obey orders and to fly my plane against Germany’s enemies,’ said Captain Gerder. ‘I am not required, Herr Major, to influence the wishes or actions of private citizens.’

  Impudent young devil, thought Major Kirsten.

  ‘Nevertheless, Herr Captain, your cooperation is requested,’ he said, ‘and General von Feldermann would be extremely grateful for it.’

  ‘My first consideration will be to respect Sophia’s wishes,’ said Captain Gerder.

  ‘Very laudable,’ said Major Kirsten, ‘but I hope your consideration would also embrace her parents’ natural anxieties. That isn’t an unreasonable comment?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Captain Gerder, but sounded indifferent.

  ‘Would you at least be good enough to inform me if Fräulein Sophia does arrive?’ asked Major Kirsten.

  ‘You mean that if I put Sophia’s wishes above her parents’ anxieties, you would at least like me to tell you exactly where she is?’

  ‘Precisely, Herr Captain – if that is also not too unreasonable. Thank you.’ Major Kirsten hung up, deliberately giving Captain Gerder no time to argue a refusal. There, he thought, was a young man as unconventional as Sophia herself. What was it he had said? My first consideration will be to respect Sophia’s wishes. Will be? Not would be? One could infer from that, perhaps, that Sophia knew he was in Douai and had been in touch with him. One could also infer that he knew Sophia intended to go to him.

  The major called Colonel Hoffner again and asked him if an eye could be kept on the movements of Captain Fritz Gerder, a pilot in von Richtofen’s squadron presently staying at the Hotel Avignon in Douai. It was possible that the young lady in question might meet him there or somewhere else in the town.

  ‘My friend,’ said Colonel Hoffner, ‘I presume you know the war is still on?’

  ‘Even in a war like this,’ said Major Kirsten, ‘there are times when small favours have to be asked of old colleagues.’

  ‘Are we dealing with spies and traitors, perhaps?’ said Colonel Hoffner.

  ‘I’m not permitted to answer that,’ said Major Kirsten.

  ‘Ah, so.’ said the colonel. ‘Well, I’ll do what I can, Josef.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m not asking for the young lady to be detained, only to be advised of her whereabouts.’

  ‘You’ve already made that point.’

  ‘I’m getting old,’ said Major Kirsten, and put the phone down.

  The winding country roads of agricultural Nord were indifferently surfaced, but Sophia von Feldermann handled the powerful Bugatti belonging to her family with the confidence of a young woman who had benefited from the expert tuition of the family chauffeur.

  She had gone to her father to seek his understanding and help, although neither she nor her mother were encouraged to appear at the Corps Headquarters unless invited. She went because she knew he was not quite the autocrat he sometimes seemed, but her mother forestalled her. By the time she had reached the chateau late the previous evening, a parental phone conversation had taken place, and as soon as she mentioned her wish to marry Captain Fritz Gerder she was up against a prearranged opposition she could not break down. Further, to thwart any intention she had of eloping with Fritz, whom she knew to be in Douai, her father commanded Captain Vorster to drive her back to her mother first thing in the morning, her mother at present being in Baden-Baden. From there, Sophia knew, she would be taken home to Lissa in South Prussia and kept there until the war ended and certain young flying officers could go back to being clerks. Her mother believed that although many girls might look romantically at any airman, no discriminating girl would look even casually at a clerk. But Fritz was not a clerk. He was the son of a Bavarian professor, and he was also a university graduate. In addition, he was an excellent fighter pilot. He had to be, or he would not be flying with Richtofen’s squadron.

  The war would soon end. With the Russians beaten and in the throes of revolution, General Ludendorff was planning a gigantic offensive that would tear the French and British apart. Captain Vorster had confidently said so.

  Sophia motored at a steady speed. She knew her father would send someone after her, and would probably pick on Captain Vorster, giving the poor man a chance to remedy his mistake. Her father commanded thousands of men, but it was her elegant and aristocratic mother who commanded the family. Both sons were with von Mackenson’s army and on his staff. That was due as much to her mother’s influence as her father’s. Her mother was of very ancient and noble Prussian lineage, and considered it her duty to secure the proudest of futures for her children. Sophia had wanted to enlist in the Women’s Army Corps when it was formed, but her mother would not hear of it and insisted she continued with her voluntary work for the German Red Cross. In the meantime, it was to be hoped that Sophia would favourably consider attaching herself to Count Frederick von Menckenburg. To Sophia, however, this scion of Prussian nobility was so austere and correct that she felt he would expect his wife to give formal notice whenever she desired to speak to him. She had no wish whatever to marry any man as humourless as that.

  Fritz was very different. Correctness and convention, he said, were designed by the sour to suffocate the sweet.

  He had just had a narrow escape from death in one more aerial combat with British fighter planes. His engine was on fire when he landed, his damaged machine pancaked and he was pulled out with his body a mass of bruises. He had refused to be hospitalized. Instead, he was resting in an hotel in Douai and had telephoned her from there. She desperately wanted to join him.

  They had met in Berlin during a reception for newly decorated flying officers. Introduced, they at once found it easy to talk to each other. Fritz, young, handsome and amusing, captivated her with his cheerful disregard of formality. He had a reckless air that excited her. He was very different indeed from the stiff, monocled Junkers of Prussia.

  Before the reception was over, Fritz found an opportunity to kiss her. It was an act of bold outrageousness, and she found herself breathless when he planted the kiss full on her lips. She affected indignation. It did not work, and Fritz laughed at her.

  ‘Delicious girl,’ he said.

  ‘Impudent boy,’ said Sophia.

  ‘Let’s both refuse to grow up,’ he said.

  ‘Apologize,’ said Sophia, fair and brilliant in her gown.

  ‘Apologize?’ said Fritz. ‘For kissing you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But how absurd,’ said Fritz. ‘We’ve met and soon we’ll part. A single meeting with a beautiful girl and a single kiss. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Do you kiss every girl with whom you have a single meeting?’

  ‘Only if they’re like you, haughty and beautiful. But of course, a single meeting with you is also absurd. I shall write to you out of the sky, Sophia von Feldermann, and end every letter with a thousand kisses.’

  ‘A thousand?’ said Sophia.

  ‘Give or take a few,’ said Fritz.

  ‘Am I expected to answer such letters?’

  ‘I shall be very put out if you don’t,’ said Fritz, ‘for every one will contain a declaration of love.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ smiled Sophia.

  ‘Very,’ said Fritz, ‘but there it is, you’ve swept me off my feet and must take the consequences.’

  Sophia laughed.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ she s
aid.

  ‘So is everyone else. Haven’t you noticed the whole world’s insane?’

  She looked at him. He wore his brittle recklessness as carelessly as he wore his new Iron Cross.

  ‘If you’re serious about writing to me,’ she said, ‘I’m staying at the Hotel Bristol with my mother for a while.’

  He did write, and his letters were as amusing as he was. They met again three weeks later when he was given leave. She introduced him to her parents, her father also being in Berlin at the time. Her mother was gracious but cool, a sure sign she disapproved. It had no effect on Fritz. Life for him was in the balance, and social nuances of any kind were of no importance to him whatever. The long battle for air supremacy was going against Germany. The improved fighter planes of the Allies were causing an alarming increase in German fatalities, even in Richtofen’s squadron. Fritz wasted no time trying to impress Sophia’s mother. He concentrated on the conquest of Sophia, who came dangerously close to giving herself to him, understanding instinctively his need to experience all he could while he could – without in her innocence realizing he had already experienced the ultimate bliss in the arms of several women looking for wartime escapism of their own. For all her dislike of stuffier conventions, Sophia was naturally cautious. She could, in her spirit of independence, reject her chosen path, but she could not wholly reject her sense of morality. That upset her, making her feel she had a prudish streak. If Fritz had mentioned marriage, she might have risked the consequences and yielded. She was close to doing so at times, when Fritz’s kisses and caresses were demonstrably ardent.

  Her mother hoped the association was no more than a little flutter in the storm of war. But when they had moved from Berlin to spend a month in Baden-Baden, Hildegarde von Feldermann discovered her daughter was still communicating regularly with Fritz, not only by letter but also by telephone. Gently, she advised Sophia to end the relationship. Sophia asked to be allowed to make up her own mind. Her mother asked if she could make it up sensibly. Sophia, defiant, said if Fritz proposed, she would accept, at which her mother said she would not allow her to make such a fool of herself. Knowing what this would mean, Sophia took to her heels a few days later, having received a telephone call from Fritz to say he had been shaken up by a crash-landing and was resting in Douai. Using the family car, she drove to France to seek her father’s support. Her father, surely, would not disapprove of one of Germany’s heroes of the air. Her mother guessed what was in her mind, which was why Sophia’s case with her father was already lost before she arrived.

  But it was not completely lost once she had given the talkative Captain Vorster the slip. In a few weeks she would be twenty-one and an independent woman. Then, if Fritz was willing, she would marry him, with or without her parents’ consent, and when the war was over – and it had to be over soon – she would dance in the Bavarian cornfields with him. In Douai, she could see him, talk to him, and somehow let him know that if he would only ask she would gladly be his wife.

  She used the rural byways, even though some of them were quite awful, in order to avoid being caught and taken back. The front, she thought at one point, could be no more than forty kilometres away, the rumble of guns spasmodic. She did not think about the hazards that might confront a young German lady travelling alone in the occupied area of France. Hers was a fearless spirit, and she never retreated from a challenge.

  It was then that the biplanes of war came out of the clear blue sky.

  ‘C’est la guerre, mademoiselle.’

  Sophia jumped and turned. There he was, the pilot of the burning Camel, his goggles up over his flying helmet, his face oily. A scarf was around his neck, and below his thick flying jacket were khaki breeches, tucked into brown boots. Khaki. He was as British as his plane. His legs were long, his frame sinewy, his face rugged beneath the smears of oil. His eyes were quick and flickering, a sign of nerves still stretched to the limit. He regarded her with interest, and a smile showed, as if in acknowledgement of the fact that her arrival was far more pleasurable than the significance of Richtofen’s triumphant departure. Her long black leather coat, belted, was not designed merely to keep out the cold. It was expensively styled, and it paid its tailored tribute to her curving figure. She was taller than the average woman at five feet nine, and carried herself with the pride of every Prussian aristocrat. The coat reached to her calves, partly hiding her knee-length, lace-up black boots. Her hat, a soft velour, was black with a white band, an onyx-topped pin keeping it securely in place. Beneath the brim, her pale blonde hair lay softly over her forehead, and her eyes were a bright blue because of the clear air and the sunshine. Sophia Erica Marlene von Feldermann was considered a highly desirable Prussian beauty.

  Recovering from the shock of finding the British airman almost at her elbow, her thoughts ran quickly. It was natural for him to think she was French. No one would expect young German ladies to proliferate in occupied France. And the family car was not a German make, but a Bugatti.

  She made up her mind to go along with his mistaken assumption – for the time being.

  ‘Oh, such a gallant escape,’ she said in fluent French.

  ‘Gallant?’ His laugh was self-derisive, his flickering eyes darting around to come to rest on the car. ‘I was beaten into the damned ground, and quite literally.’ His own French was as good as hers, for it had been perfected during his months of service in France. He looked up at the sky. Richtofen and his red Albatros had disappeared. Nearby, the Camel was a fiery, crackling furnace. ‘I must get out of here before the Germans arrive to inspect Richtofen’s latest kill.’

  ‘Richtofen?’ said Sophia innocently.

  ‘Yes, that was the Baron who knocked me out. Mademoiselle, do you live in this area?’

  While relieved in all humanity that he had not perished in the flames of his crashed plane, Sophia felt a natural and distinct coldness towards him and his country. England had gone to war against Germany quite unfairly and quite unnecessarily. And it was the British Navy’s harsh blockade that was causing starvation amongst the German people.

  ‘I’m from Valenciennes,’ she said, which was not wholly untrue.

  ‘Valenciennes?’ He thought about it. ‘Is that your car?’

  ‘My family’s,’ said Sophia.

  ‘I’m Captain Peter Marsh, Royal Flying Corps,’ he said, ‘and I need to move fast and to find an escape route. Could you drive me to Valenciennes?’

  ‘I could,’ said Sophia, simulating a sympathy she did not feel, ‘but wouldn’t advise it, mon Capitaine. Valenciennes is a restricted area and full of Germans. You must run for cover somewhere, of course. To a village, perhaps, where the people will hide you until you can get back to your squadron.’

  Captain Marsh, eyes searching the unbroken quietness of the countryside, said, ‘Mademoiselle, you know this area, obviously. I’d like you to drive me somewhere fast, somewhere safe.’

  Sophia did not think that even a genuine Frenchwoman would take too kindly to the peremptory nature of that demand. She herself wholly disliked it. Nor was she very keen on a situation that had her face to face with a man who was at war with her country. She lowered her eyes to hide her reaction, and noted then that his left glove was off, his hand resting on his right elbow.

  Opting for delaying tactics, she said, ‘Your hand is hurt?’

  ‘I gave it a nasty knock, yes,’ he said. ‘But I was lucky. I was, by the grace of God, allowed just enough time to scramble clear before the plane blew up.’

  Without thinking of her reaction, Sophia said coolly, ‘God is on your side?’

  ‘Mademoiselle?’

  Correcting herself, she said, ‘I am sure He is, mon Capitaine, I am sure He is on the side of all our brave men. Shall I look at your hand?’

  ‘Not now.’ He seemed a little impatient. ‘Mademoiselle, would you oblige me by getting me as far from here as possible, and as quickly as you can?’

  Sophia, trapped by her adoption of a French identity, felt a
surge of dislike. She was by no means disposed to help him escape. Men from the German Luftwaffe would not be long in arriving once Richtofen reported his victory. If she could keep the Englishman talking, things might resolve themselves conveniently for her.

  ‘Mon Capitaine, I really think—’

  ‘I’m sorry, there’s no time for a conversation,’ said Captain Marsh. ‘I’d like to depart immediately.’

  ‘You are insisting?’

  ‘Insisting?’ He looked surprised. ‘You’d rather I waited for the Germans to arrive, or a crowd of farmworkers? Or both? I’d be gobbled up by the Germans, and I’d be an embarrassment to the workers.’

  ‘The car is very noticeable,’ she said.

  ‘Not as noticeable as Poppy the Third,’ he said.

  ‘Poppy?’

  ‘That’s Poppy.’ He indicated the still-burning Camel. ‘She’s the third flying bird I’ve mismanaged. Two in the Middle East. Your car will get me out of here faster than my legs, or would you prefer not to be involved? I’ll understand, naturally.’

  She thought him impatient rather than understanding. She supposed most French-women would do something to help a shot-down British pilot, but if she decided to be the exception, there was little he could do about it.

  Politely, she said, ‘I’d prefer, if the Germans stopped us, not to have you feel responsible for them shooting me. People who assist Germany’s enemies do get shot. It’s quite legal. If it happened to me, I’m sure you’d be most unhappy, yes?’

  His expression hardened. He frowned.

  ‘Then I’ll drive your car myself,’ he said. ‘I’ve given my hand a knock, but I’ll manage. You can stay here, and when the Germans arrive, as they will, simply tell them I made off with your car. They won’t shoot you for that.’

  That proposition, brusquely delivered, did not suit Sophia at all. She needed the car for her own purposes, to get to Fritz, a man who in his reckless disregard for convention might in the happiest way help her to break free from the possessive dominance of her mother. She would have to compromise, she would have to bluff this pilot. He was not only the first enemy fighting man she had encountered, he was also the first Englishman she had met. She was not very impressed.