Eagles at War

by Boyne, Walter J.

  But she was a realist, and she knew they had only a brief, precarious time to love—a life together was clearly impossible. It was so unfair. In the few months that she had known him, Helmut had proved himself to be as truly good as any man she had ever met—kind, courageous, forthright. Her opinion was not just based on observation. She had checked on him with her new network of friends and talked to his comrades. He was known to be honest to a fault, a hard worker, fiercely proud of family, and totally reliable. But with that went the inescapable fact that he was a loyal German, ready to fight for Hitler.

  She let the tears flow. Circumstances had entrapped her in a web of lies, at the Ministry, with Helmut, with her parents. Even tonight, when General Caldwell had inquired about her work, she had not been able to tell the whole truth—that she owed her job to a powerful political connection.

  The week she had arrived in Germany, she had been invited to a charity ball sponsored by Magda Goebbels, the wife of the Propaganda Minister. As powerful as Madame Goebbels was in Nazi social circles, she tried to ingratiate herself with the patrician families of the old regime by surrounding herself with members of the German nobility.

  Lyra's father was distantly related to the ancient Field Marshall von Mackesen. Dressed as always in the Imperial uniform of his beloved Second Death's Head Hussars, the skeletal old man had presented her to Magda Goebbels formally, as if they had been at court. Magda had taken an instant liking to Lyra, inviting her to yet another benefit the following night. Lyra, anxious to eat well and to meet people who might help her, gladly agreed to come. Within days she had a job and had joined the circle of German and foreign aristocrats Magda cultivated.

  It was Joseph Goebbels himself—"Mahatma Propaganda" as the wits called him—who had arranged for her instant employment. After Magda introduced them, he had stood in the doorway, his piercing dark eyes probing the room like searchlights, sifting through the crowd of women the way a miner sifts the gold from the sand. Under his gaze she had felt a sudden chill. He nodded curtly, turned, and left. The next day, there was a call from the Foreign Ministry, and she suddenly had work. Goebbels had not called since, but she knew that she had incurred an obligation.

  Lyra flicked on the switch, squinting in the dim light to check her wristwatch. Twenty minutes had passed. It was time to go back and tell Helmut the truth, to end this comedy of errors.

  Josten was waiting patiently with champagne and plates of food, quite accustomed to the idea that someone as beautiful as Lyra might sometimes be capricious. They walked silently to the French doors, which led to a covered balcony overlooking the garden.

  As they moved toward a corner ledge where they could rest their plates, Josten sensed the dramatic shift in Lyra's mood. Josten knew that she constantly fought some inner battle; it was part of her charm for him, a man who had no doubts about himself.

  "Helmut, we've got to talk. I haven't been honest with you."

  Josten wondered if she was bothered that she had not been a virgin. He had never said anything, never asked. And what did it matter in Germany, in 1938?

  "My mother is a Jewess. Under your stupid racial laws, I am mischlinge, half-Jewish. If I am found out—and I will be, of course, with all the gossiping informants that crowd your country—it will ruin your career."

  He stepped back involuntarily, for once speechless.

  She went on, her tone changing swiftly from anger to sadness. "I'm sorry. I had no idea that we would become so involved, or that I would love you so much. With this pogrom going on, I realized that tonight I had to tell you. I'll have to leave Germany."

  "It's not a pogrom, there are just some disturb ..."

  "It is a pogrom. But I don't blame you for being angry. I should have told you at once, before we made love." Then she snarled, furious again, "Before you defiled your precious Aryan blood."

  Josten was stunned. His life had been one of orderly progression, from Gymnasium, to learning to fly with the Gelsenkirchen flying club, then joining the new Luftwaffe. Each successive challenge had been something predictable, to overcome with effort, eye-hand coordination, and training. Lyra's announcement was devastating, forcing him to make a decision that meant not progress but regression. To keep her he would have to give up all that he had worked for.

  Her voice broke as she continued. "I didn't expect us to fall in love."

  "Please be still for a moment." Josten's voice was harsh, betraying not anger but stress. "First, before I say anything, let me tell you that I love you, and we will find a way to do what we have to do."

  She looked at him, unbelieving. "There is nothing to do."

  "Of course there is. I'll do whatever is necessary."

  "That's what you say now. Just let them say, 'No more flying' or

  'No more promotions' or 'Off to Oranienburg,' and you'll sing a different tune."

  Josten controlled his anger. "You have a pretty picture of me, don't you? Thank you so much for your confidence."

  She had a far prettier picture of him than he could have imagined. The deep physical love she felt for him was overwhelmed by her admiration for him. They shared so many passions—reading, music, walking in the mountains. He was the brightest man she'd ever known, able to talk convincingly and at length on any subject. He would have been unique anywhere; in Nazi Germany he was an anomaly, a biological phenomenon.

  He took her by the hand. "Lyra, you've given me a surprise. Let me give you one. I am going to marry you, and no one, not the Party, not the Luftwaffe, no one, will stop me."

  "I might have something to say about that."

  "You might, but you don't. Enough of this nonsense. I'll resign my commission. We can go to Argentina or China. We'll be married within the month!"

  Lyra stood with her hand to her mouth; the years of flight and survival had taught her that wanting anything too much was dangerous.

  "I'm sorry, but I can't believe you."

  "That really offends me, Lyra! What do you think I've been doing, using you as if you were some sort of whore? Did you think we were just having an affair, a few quick romps in the meadow?"

  She was standing close to him, drowning in the physical sensations he called forth, suddenly quite passionate, anxious to kiss him here, then take him home to bed.

  "What would they do to you if they knew your lover was a Jewess?"

  "Nothing—and my lover won't be a Jewess, my wife will. What do you think about marrying a horrid Nazi?"

  His arms were around her, the heat of his body pressing against her. She buried her face in his neck, her tongue greedily licking his perspiration, desire rushing through her.

  She moved back and took his face in her hands. "It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't even matter what you think tomorrow, in the cold light of day. Right now I just want you to hold me."

  They were kissing deeply when a hand tapped Helmut on the shoulder.

  "Captain Josten, I'm sorry, but you have been recalled to base. Apparently the disorders are spreading."

  Lyra watched in amazement as the cloak of military responsiveness fell over Helmut. He glanced at her apologetically and said, "I'm sorry. I'll ask General Caldwell to see you home."

  Stunned at his abrupt reversion to form, she could only say, "Go ahead, Helmut, call me in the morning. I'll walk home—it's only a few blocks, and there surely won't be any problems here, near the embassies."

  As they reentered the ballroom through the French doors, Josten nodded to Caldwell, who hurried over and offered to see Lyra home. She refused curtly. Caldwell followed her out, watching her stride like a proud young lioness. He turned in the opposite direction toward his car.

  Lyra walked swiftly, oblivious to the chill or the unevenness of the pavement beneath her high heels, her mouth dry with fury that she had believed even for a moment that Helmut would actually give up everything for her. The events of the past few moments had driven the truth home to her, enabling her to make a clear-cut decision. Marriage was out of the question�
��she realized that she had always known it would be. But she would be his lover as long as time and circumstance permitted. The future had always been uncertain, and now with the increasing talk of war, there was no assurance that either one of them would even be alive in a year.

  The decision was an immense relief. Lyra knew that there was no reconciliation possible in their political differences. He was simply as incapable of giving up flying, or of betraying his father and his fatherland by leaving with her, as she was of changing her own heredity.

  They would just have to take what they could from life, enjoying the moment. The time was coming soon when she would have to end the affair, with regret, but without compunction.

  An Opel Blitz truck packed with brown-uniformed SA storm troopers rumbled by, the men waving and shouting with the truculent boozy humor of bullies on a spree.

  As she neared the corner, she heard the sound of breaking glass and the wavering high-pitched scream of an old man. Lyra sprinted ahead to find the storm troopers using clubs to smash the windows of a jewelry shop. In front of the store, four of the men were kicking the source of the now diminishing screams; others were picking at the glittering but inexpensive items that had been left in the window for show. Enraged, Lyra burst among them, grabbing an uplifted club and jerking a surprised storm trooper backward to the ground. She screamed, "Stop at once, or I'll report you to Goebbels!" She glanced down in horror at the old man, his head crushed and bleeding.

  The Nazis reacted as if on maneuvers, quickly circling to surround her, weapons at the ready. The obviously intoxicated leader, built like a howitzer shell, all bullet head and sloping shoulders, paused to appraise her.

  "Kameraden, maybe there's something better to do than teaching dirty old Jews a lesson."

  Lyra backed away step by step as the SA leader moved forward. The other storm troopers formed a rank around her, smiling and joking with each other now, the injured man forgotten on the pavement.

  Suddenly, headlights illuminated the group against the shattered remnants of the storefront. Henry Caldwell jumped the curb to plow among them, the chrome bumper of his Buick staff car shoving them apart like an icebreaker, separating them from Lyra. One man ripped off the American flag that flew on the right front fender, while another pounded on the cover of the fender-mounted spare with his club, knocking the rearview mirror off. The storm troopers were obviously confused, uncertain as to how far they could go, wanting to destroy the car, afraid to do so, but still not willing to back down.

  Caldwell reached back and opened the door behind him.

  "Get in, Countess."

  The SA leader stood weaving at the front of the car, his truncheon slapping against his hand. In slurred, broken English he said, "Clear out, Yank. You've no business here."

  Six of the troopers had their guns aimed at the car. Rifle bolts clicked and Lyra screamed—she knew too well what the sound meant. The troopers, some Great War veterans and some dough-faced hooligans from the street, were clearly anxious to shoot, waiting only for a signal or a threat. Caldwell knew that the situation had gone critical; he had seen men like this before, angry strikebreakers coming to the mines, preferring to kill rather than argue.

  "Don't say anything, don't make any sudden movements," he cautioned her. Calling to the storm troopers' leader he said, "I'm General Caldwell, United States Army. I'm with the American Embassy. Let me proceed at once."

  "I don't care if you are President 'Jewsevelt.' I want that woman for interrogation. Turn her over and clear out before I break your head."

  Caldwell eased out the clutch, rolling the Buick's big front wheel over the SA man's foot, sending him screaming in pain back toward his truck. Caldwell burned rubber accelerating into the street as the troopers fired.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  On September 1, 1939, a new world war proved that everyone could be wrong. The English and French believed they could appease Hitler, and were blindsided by the infamous Ribbentrop/Molotov pact. The Poles so believed in their own strength that their colonels boasted about how quickly they could take Berlin. The Russians believed they could buy time by sending Hitler tributes of raw materials and foodstuffs. The Germans believed that the English and French would not honor their guarantees to the Poles. And the United States believed that it would remain neutral, as the law required.

  The Allies watched Hitler like a frog watches a snake, hypnotized by impending doom, allowing him to split the war into two distinct halves, each with time and events moving at vastly different rates. In the East, Germany savagely liquidated Poland in a war of blazing swiftness. In the West, nothing happened except for loudspeakers blaring propaganda messages and bombers dropping leaflets.

  In America, President Roosevelt was preparing to run for an unprecedented third term, pacifying the isolationists by stressing U.S. neutrality and issuing an embargo order on the sale of arms to belligerents. At the same time he began an unprecedented peacetime military buildup, spending that helped pull America from the mire of its ten-year Depression.

  In the face of the nightmare, individuals tried to live "normal lives."

  *

  Dayton, Ohio/January 15, 1940

  Frank Bandfield had never felt more helpless, somehow an intruder at Patty's bedside in the ward where other women also labored. She lay asleep, vulnerable, her fragile beauty marred by deep circles of fatigue and pain, her mouth, normally so sweetly shaped, slack and open as she gasped for breath.

  A small radio, its fractured brown plastic case friction-taped together, was quietly vibrating to the tune of "Pennsylvania 6-5000." The tired night nurse, sprawled in the chair, her uniform rumpled and hair straying out from under her cap, sat tapping a thermometer in rhythm to it.

  Patty was in her eighth hour of labor. Bandfield had stopped patting her hand, not wishing to awaken her. She groaned as another contraction hit her, his own insides grunting and compressing in sympathetic reaction.

  Her eyes opened and she grunted, "What does the doctor say?"

  "He wants to wait another few hours; if nothing happens, he'll do a Caesarean."

  "Stretch marks or scars, not much of a choice, eh? I'm about ready to give up; I'm pretty tired."

  She lapsed back into sleep. He sat watching her, torn between admiration for her courage and utter relief that she would never have to undergo a similar agony. This was it; two children were enough.

  With Charlotte, Patty had started labor about three in the afternoon, and the baby was born at eight. Now that worried him; if the first olive out of the bottle had been easy, the rest should be even easier. He'd missed Charlotte's easy birth and had almost missed this one. He had just come back from observing the outnumbered Finnish David bringing the Russian Goliath to a halt in the Winter War, and Henry Caldwell had already cut orders for him to go to Brazil, where the quasi-Fascist government was in the market for some new airplanes.

  Bandfield knew he was fortunate to have the confidence of the most important man in the American aircraft industry. Caldwell's genius was keeping a dozen balls in the air at a time. He had the Curtiss P-40 production line rolling. Boeing was cranking up B-17 production, and Consolidated had flown their XB-24 at December's end. And that was just the current stuff; for the future there was a competition for a whole series of fighters and for a huge superbomber that could bomb Germany from the United States!

  Caldwell was even more deeply involved with Elsie—he'd told Bandy privately that he wanted to marry her. He was talking about having children and Elsie hadn't even consented to an engagement. Bandfield worried that Caldwell was going to trip himself up. It was stupid to have an affair with the "personal assistant" of the president of an airplane company he was doing business with, yet Caldwell seemed to feel he could manage it. Bandfield was certain that Elsie would exploit the relationship.

  Caldwell needed to be careful. The Air Corps was growing, bringing in young, ambitious hotshots eager to make general. And it was no different than any o
ther organization—there would be sharks circling Caldwell, especially now that his influence had spread so far.

  Recognized as Hap Arnold's right-hand man—although his help getting Arnold his position was not generally known—Caldwell had a moral authority far beyond his rank, gained by his knack for reaching across organizational boundaries. Caldwell had not just done people favors—he'd gone out of his way to create situations where he could do them. He had markers from the right people everywhere, and he used them judiciously as he imprinted his personality on the entire Air Corps. Perhaps his infatuation with Elsie was good, a sign that he was, after all, a mere mortal, not like the comic strip guy, Superman.

  Patty groaned, and he picked up her hand. "I felt something move, Bandy—you'd better get the doctor." Two hours later, a baby boy was born, six pounds and four ounces of red-faced fighting fury. Bandy loved the sight of him, his little features compressed into prunelike wrinkles, tiny blue eyes peeping out at the strange new world, lungs loudly protesting the strange new order of things. Bandy had already picked out a name for his son: George Roget Bandfield—George for his father, whom he still loved deeply despite his desertion, and Roget for his best friend. Later, he sat again at Patty's bedside as she slept, happier than he'd ever been, aware of just how lucky he was.

  *

  Cottbus, Germany/July 13, 1940

  Captain Helmut Josten felt that he was the unluckiest man in Germany. The woman he loved wouldn't marry him, and he was being dragged down a gravel path by a fat little Nazi to a meeting for which he didn't even know the reason. Behind them, the entourage of staff officers were struggling out of the convoy of flag-decked Mercedes sedans to stretch their legs.

  Honorary SS Obergruppenfuehrer Kurt Weigand was almost running to stay ahead of Josten's crisp military stride. From the back he looked like a gingerbread man, so short that the tip of his SS ceremonial sword dragged in the crushed gravel of the path. Weigand's hand continually caressed the Hitler-duplicate mustache underneath the bobbed fleshy knob that was his nose. In 1916, during the first attack on Fort Douamont at Verdun, a French trenching spade had smashed into his face, breaking his nose and cheekbones, and knocking out his front teeth. The spade had provided the only angular relief to an otherwise perfectly round head and body. Almost bald, his remaining hair close-cropped, Weigand was essentially featureless—except for his eyes, which hinted at the complexity of his personality. When he spoke, their pale blue gleamed with the expectant happiness of a new puppy. Yet those same eyes were never still, always moving and recording, continuously assessing the value of every person and every event to himself.