White Eagles

by Elizabeth Wein

  First published in 2019 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2019

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2019 Elizabeth Gatland

  The moral right of Elizabeth Gatland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  ISBN: 978-1-78112-909-8

  For Mark

  CONTENTS

  PART 1: Invasion

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  PART 2: Escape

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  PART 3: Exile

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Author's Note

  PART 1:

  Invasion

  CHAPTER 1

  “I can’t believe you’ve been called up first!” Leopold said as he stared at the letter his twin sister Kristina had just opened. “Unfair!”

  Leopold stood by the hall table at the bottom of the stairwell – where all the post for their building got left. Kristina’s letter was headed with the Polish Air Force’s crest – a fierce white eagle.

  Last year, Kristina and Leopold Tomiak had both completed their basic pilot training. Now they shared a flat and worked as instructors at the Vistula Aeroclub outside Warsaw. It was the summer of 1939 and three months until their nineteenth birthday.

  It had been an uneasy summer – Germany’s army was gathering near Poland’s borders. All of Europe was worried. The German Luftwaffe was the most fearsome air force in the world. Every now and then you could see their spy planes flying high over Warsaw. It made your skin crawl when you looked up, wondering if they’d drop a bomb or fly away without causing trouble.

  So far, they’d always flown away.

  Kristina and Leopold had signed up for the Polish Air Force Reserve. Now the shadow of war loomed and this letter commanded Kristina to join them. She would be a liaison pilot – flying missions to take strategic photographs, deliver messages and sometimes transport important passengers.

  “Why you and not me?” Leopold cried. Kristina’s brother was hot‑headed and open‑hearted, always bad at hiding his emotions. “I got my pilot’s licence first!” he added. “And I’ve trained more solo flyers than you have!”

  Kristina laughed. She was the more level‑headed of the twins and was used to Leopold’s dramatics. “You only just edged ahead of me this morning!” she reminded him. “I was winning yesterday, before your solo student today. And tomorrow I’ll be in the Air Force!”

  “I expect my letter has been delayed in the post,” Leopold said. “What kind of missions do they want you to fly?” He snatched the letter from Kristina’s hand so he could see it better. “Communications. You’ll still be based at the Vistula Aeroclub. Oh, and the plane they’re giving you is just an RWD‑8. A training aircraft – like we fly every day!”

  “It has an extra fuel tank,” Kristina pointed out. “It can go twice as far as those old flight‑school trainers. I’ll be leaving you in the dust.”

  She turned to meet her brother’s eyes. She could tell by the look on Leopold’s face that he was proud of her – if also a bit envious.

  Kristina knew they’d probably be sent to different regiments at some point, but she hoped they wouldn’t be too far away from each other for now. Leopold was her best friend as well as her brother – they’d moved away from home together and were so busy with work that they hardly saw their parents.

  “Kristina Tomiak, fearless scout for the Polish Air Force!” Leopold said. “A young eagle! You’ll be spying on German troops – leading fighter pilots to their prey! Perhaps they’re giving the liaison jobs to the girls so that the men can fly the fighter planes. No doubt they’ll make me a fighter pilot when I get my letter.”

  “If no one tips them off about how big‑headed you are,” Kristina told him.

  “Hah.” Leopold laughed. “Then you’ll be jealous of me instead of the other way round!”

  Kristina thought he was probably right about the women pilots getting liaison work so that the young men were free to fight. But this letter meant she had real air work to do, and she wasn’t jealous at all.

  “We’ll be eagles together,” Kristina said.

  CHAPTER 2

  Almost a month later, Kristina watched a small plane arriving at the Vistula Aeroclub.

  As she squinted into the late‑August sun, she saw it was an RWD‑8 like hers, with one high wing and two open cockpits. Leopold stood by her side, shielding his eyes with one hand. He hadn’t got his call‑up letter yet. Since Kristina had joined the Air Force, she had mostly been flying important officials across Poland as the country scrambled to prepare for war with Germany. Leopold always seemed to be around when Kristina set off on a mission.

  Kristina was expecting this RWD‑8 plane, but she wasn’t sure who the passenger was. She just knew he’d been doing dangerous intelligence work in Germany. He’d been picked up in secret from there and was now being passed on to Kristina. She would take him to a meeting in the big southern Polish city of Lvov.

  The plane weaved left and right across the blue summer sky. It was buffeted by the wind and looked as fragile as a kite as it sank lower and lower.

  “What’s wrong with that pilot?” Kristina wondered aloud. “He can’t fly in a straight line! How did he ever find his way here from Germany?”

  “Perhaps he’s working at his skywriting,” Leopold said.

  Kristina laughed. The best thing about Leopold was that he always saw the sunny side of every situation, up until the very last second.

  It could also sometimes be the worst thing about him.

  The small plane was close now, very low, coming in just over the end of the airfield. The pilot steadied the wings at last and kept them stable as he floated in to land.

  Kristina held her breath as the plane’s wheels touched down on the airfield grass. They bounced back up in the air for a moment and then landed again with a thud. It was a hard and uneven landing, and not what she would have expected from a confident Air Force liaison pilot.

  “Ouch,” Leopold said. “His passenger will be glad to have you at the controls for the next leg of the trip, won’t he?”

  Kristina beckoned to her brother by jerking her head. “Come on, I want to meet them at the hangar when they get there. I already made sure my plane is full of fuel. I’m going to need that extra tank to make it to Lvov in one hop.”

  They crossed the airfield together. Leopold, good‑natured as always, waved as the plane taxied towards the Vistula Aeroclub hangar. Kristina could just see the tops of the heads of the pilot and passenger, in helmets and goggles, peeping out above the edge of the open cockpits.

  As they got closer to the plane, Kristina saw there was something wrong with its wing. The thin fabric that covered its wooden frame was torn in the back, and trailing shreds of cloth were fluttering behind the plane in the wind from the propeller.

 
Then she saw a line of holes peppering the side of the plane below the cockpit.

  Someone had been firing at the plane with a machine gun.

  As the pilot switched off the aircraft’s engine, Leopold leaped forwards ahead of his sister. He jumped up onto the wing strut lightly and leaned in to the cockpit.

  “What happened?” Leopold asked.

  Kristina couldn’t hear the pilot’s answer. But she saw him hold up one hand. Blood ran between the pilot’s fingers, bright red and dripping. The sleeve of his flight suit was torn and sodden with blood.

  One of the bullets that had pierced the aircraft had struck the pilot’s arm. That was why his landing had been so unsteady.

  Kristina felt as if a jolt of electricity had struck her in the stomach.

  The same thing could happen to me, she thought. He is doing exactly the same job as me, in the same kind of plane.

  The wounded pilot jerked his bloody hand back towards his passenger behind him. Leopold jumped down from the wing strut so he could lean in to talk to the passenger … and then turned around to look at Kristina with a face as white as a ghost.

  “The passenger’s dead,” Leopold said.

  CHAPTER 3

  “They came out of nowhere,” the pilot said. “Luftwaffe planes, three of them.” He pulled off his goggles slowly with his good hand. He was trembling as he climbed out of the plane. “They had black crosses and swastikas on their tails – new German fighter planes, the fastest things I’ve ever seen …”

  The pilot didn’t look much older than Kristina and Leopold – a thin young man with mousy hair and intense dark eyes.

  “The Luftwaffe were scouting over the city,” the injured pilot said. “And got me just as they were leaving. I think they were running low on fuel, because they didn’t stick around to finish me off. The three of them just roared away together as if they’d decided one weaponless RWD‑8 was a waste of their time.”

  The scrawny young pilot looked as if he hardly had the strength to stand. Kristina and Leopold held him up on each side, taking care not to touch his bleeding arm.

  The wounded pilot whispered something as they held him close between them.

  “My passenger passed his information on to me before …” The pilot drew in a deep breath. “Before … before he died. He wanted me to pass it on to his contact in Lvov, if I can get there.”

  Two of the Vistula Aeroclub’s mechanics were wheeling Kristina’s RWD‑8 out of the hangar to get it ready for her flight. The mechanics in greasy overalls stared at the still head of the dead passenger slumped in the rear cockpit of the liaison plane. Then they turned to the bleeding pilot between Kristina and Leopold.

  “What’s going on?” one of the mechanics asked.

  Just then, Kristina’s commanding officer came racing out of the clubhouse opposite the hangar. He ran straight across the neat, bright flowerbed full of marigolds and geraniums that bordered the lawn in front of the clubhouse.

  “Tomiak,” the officer barked, and pointed to Leopold. “You’re on active duty as of this very minute, along with flight instructors Lipowiski and Novak. The Air Force regiments are being split up to support the ground brigades, and our orders are to ferry all our P‑11 fighter planes away from Warsaw. The Luftwaffe are getting bolder and clearly planning an attack any day. We won’t be able to fight the Nazis in the air if they destroy our aircraft on the ground.”

  Leopold looked stunned. Kristina knew he wanted to be on active duty. But he wanted to fly planes into battle, not ferry them away from the action.

  “We’re going to move supplies, fuel and ammunition to Lvov, in the south,” the commander said. “It’s not a strategic or industrial town, so we’re hoping the Germans won’t target it. Our troops will be able to pick up supplies from Lvov on their way to the Romanian border. The plan is to hold out in Romania until we get support from our British and French allies.”

  “Sir, am I to go ahead with my mission?” Kristina asked. “The passenger has died, but the pilot has been given his information to pass on.”

  The commanding officer turned to Kristina and said, “Go ahead. You can take the pilot to our new base, about ten miles outside Lvov, and his contact can meet him there. We’ll be in a village called Birky, near the forest. There’s an airstrip ready for us there.”

  The wounded pilot suddenly went limp, sagging as Kristina and Leopold tried to support him. He’d fainted. Kristina felt as if she and her brother were carrying several large sacks of potatoes between them.

  “Perhaps we’d better get this fellow to a medic before he goes anywhere,” Leopold said gravely. And then, with one last attempt at humour, Leopold added, “Otherwise my sister will need help getting her passenger into her plane.”

  CHAPTER 4

  In the air, Kristina was all right. She was amazed, and pleased, that the wounded pilot in the passenger cockpit behind her was sleeping. Waiting for a doctor had delayed their take‑off, and it was a long flight.

  So far, Kristina hadn’t run into any German planes. After a while, she managed to calm the fluttering feeling in her stomach. She carried on a conversation with Leopold in her head.

  I’m such a smooth pilot that my passenger is sleeping like a baby!

  She tried to imagine Leopold’s response. Smooth? I’ll bet he’s sleeping so well because you’re rocking the wings like a cradle.

  She couldn’t help smiling to herself. That was exactly the kind of thing he’d say.

  She prayed that Leopold didn’t run into any German planes either. He didn’t have any combat training, and the fighter plane he was ferrying probably wasn’t loaded with ammunition.

  Eagles without talons, Kristina imagined Leopold saying.

  She arrived at the Birky airstrip outside the city of Lvov and found everyone there preparing for invasion – just the same as in Warsaw. The small airfield was confusingly busy. There were several P‑11 fighter planes there already, like the one Leopold was flying. The P‑11s seemed much mightier and faster than Kristina’s RWD‑8, but she knew that they were old‑fashioned and no match for the Luftwaffe.

  Hey, Leopold, you’re quite the Air Force eagle now that you’re flying a P‑11! Kristina told her twin brother in her head.

  Air Force eagle yourself, he replied in her imagination. Don’t forget to deliver your wounded passenger and his intelligence message.

  Kristina taxied her plane close to one of the hangars. Several other pilots and two ground crew came to help Kristina’s passenger out of the plane. They seemed to know what was going on. Eventually the wounded pilot was taken away in a car with a man wearing an officer’s uniform, and Kristina never saw him again.

  It wasn’t clear to Kristina where to park her small plane, so she taxied it as far out of the way as possible, to where the airfield bordered a patch of woodland. She found a couple of stones to wedge her RWD‑8’s wheels so the plane wouldn’t roll anywhere.

  It seemed like a long hike back to the hangars and sheds that were being used as barracks and offices. Kristina saw a few young women her age wearing flying club instructors’ uniforms, just like she had worn until recently. They looked at her Air Force liaison pilot’s uniform and white eagle badge with respect.

  Leopold had left the Vistula Aeroclub still wearing his instructor’s uniform too. He didn’t even have an Air Force pilot’s badge yet.

  When are you going to get a proper kit like mine? she teased Leopold in her head.

  “Kristina! Over here!” a voice called out.

  She spotted Leopold’s dark, handsome head over the top of a dozen other pilots and ran to meet him. They kissed each other’s cheeks – one, two, three – and hugged each other.

  “You made it to Birky!” Kristina said. “How did you find me?”

  “Easy! I knew you’d be the only girl here in proper kit,” Leopold said.

  Kristina laughed.

  “Actually, I was watching for your plane,” Leopold explained. “There aren’t very many
RWD‑8s here – they’re not worth saving from the Luftwaffe bombs. And I saw the fuss they made over your passenger when you landed.”

  Kristina linked arms with her brother and they smiled at each other, glad to be together again.

  “It’s true your kit makes you stand out,” Leopold added. “I wish I looked as smart as you. Or had my badge.”

  Kristina unhooked the silver eagle from above her breast pocket. Its wings flared as it hovered to dive and it carried a victory wreath in its mouth.

  “I’ve got a uniform,” Kristina said. “You can have my badge.” She pressed it into his hand.

  CHAPTER 5

  Kristina slept with the other female pilots on folding camp beds in a corner of a mechanics’ shed. There were no blankets. Kristina lay with her head on the canvas flight bag that contained her maps and leather helmet. She was determined to try to sleep. She could hear a distant rumble that might have been explosions or maybe just the movement of armed vehicles.

  Kristina woke at five o’clock in the morning to the sound of sirens.

  It was 1 September 1939. An officer shouted an announcement: fifteen minutes earlier, the German Army had stormed across Poland’s northern and western borders, assisted by the Slovakian Army in the south. They were now moving as fast as lightning across Poland, with all their fire and fury aimed at Warsaw.

  “Combat training!” said Leopold as he and Kristina drank coffee together hastily. “I’m going to be a student pilot again! The best way to learn something is to do it, right? Off to school!”

  Leopold gave Kristina three quick kisses on her cheeks and added, “We’ll compare notes at the end of the school day, all right? Stay safe.”

  They both knew that Kristina’s job in the air was just as dangerous as her brother’s – maybe more dangerous because her plane was slower and wasn’t armed. But the Tomiak twins managed to make it back alive each day during that first week of war.