White Eagles

by Elizabeth Wein

  Would Julian even want to go? Kristina didn’t think she could convince him that a refugee camp would help get him to his family in England.

  She needed to keep her plane. She needed fuel.

  “I’m not flying a fighter plane, but I’m a liaison pilot,” Kristina said. “If you give me all the information your radio operator learned this morning, I can take it straight to Budapest today, ahead of the ground troops. My plane has an extra fuel tank and can fly twice as far as your flight‑school aircraft. Come and refuel it, and you can have this …”

  She reached into her pocket and tossed one of Julian’s gold chocolate coins in the air. It spun, twinkling dully in the morning light. Kristina snatched it out of the air as it came back down. Then she ran back towards her plane.

  The young mechanic jumped into one of the lorries and followed her.

  Kristina realised too late that the mechanic would be able to see inside the rear cockpit when he climbed up to the wing to fill the extra tank with fuel. He’d see Julian hiding.

  But she had a head start on the lorry. When she reached her plane, Kristina pulled off her Air Force tunic and threw it over the rear cockpit. She prayed that Julian had the sense to sit still and keep his head down. Then she rolled up her sleeves as if she meant business and climbed up on top of the plane to open the fuel cap.

  When the lorry pulled up, Kristina hopped down and strode forwards boldly to unhook the petrol hose. The young mechanic got out a ladder so he could climb up to the wing tank, and Kristina handed the pump up to him. He didn’t say anything. He clearly wanted to get the job over with as fast as she did, before anybody questioned him about putting fuel into a mere RWD‑8.

  When he’d finished, the mechanic held out a dirty palm, waiting for Kristina’s promised payment.

  Kristina dropped Julian’s two chocolate coins into his hand.

  The young man stared at the sweets for a moment. Kristina held her breath. She had nothing else to pay him with. She hadn’t said she’d give him anything other than the foil disc she’d flashed in the air. He might report her to someone …

  In desperation, Kristina offered the mechanic an apple as well. “They’re good and sweet,” she said.

  To her surprise, the young man burst out laughing. Joy – real joy – changed his face. It was the exact look she’d seen for a moment on Julian’s face earlier.

  “All right,” the mechanic said. “Good and sweet wishes to you too.” He pocketed the coins and took the apple.

  Kristina was baffled.

  “Now get the hell out of here,” the mechanic added. “Good luck getting to Budapest.” He jumped back into his lorry without another word and drove off.

  CHAPTER 13

  Kristina climbed back into the pilot’s cockpit of her RWD‑8. She leaned back and asked Julian, “Did you see what happened there?”

  The boy was still hidden beneath Kristina’s tunic in the seat behind her. His answer was muffled, but Kristina was amazed to hear laughter in his voice as well.

  “The driver thought you were Jewish,” Julian hissed with delight. “You gave him an apple and something sweet to go with it. He thought you were wishing him a sweet new year. It was Rosh Hashanah three days ago, the Jewish new year. You’re supposed to give people apples and honey when you wish them a sweet new year, but I guess that when you’re waiting for an invading army to turn up, chocolate works too.”

  Suddenly Kristina saw Julian in a new light.

  “Are you Jewish?” she asked.

  “I thought you knew that!” he replied. “Why do you think I want to go to England? You think Hitler’s going to be nicer to Polish Jews than he is to German Jews? You think the Nazis aren’t going to burn our temples and smash up our shops here just like they did back in Germany? And he’s not going to stop at Poland either. Dad was in the last war and he says – said – it’s just a matter of time before the trenches open up in France and Belgium again. Only now the bombs and guns will be bigger.”

  There had been Jewish people all over Warsaw, but Kristina hadn’t known much about them. They’d mostly gone to their own schools, spoken their own language, shopped for their own food in their own shops. An image came to her mind of an old bearded man she’d seen once, wearing a hat and a prayer shawl embroidered with unreadable script. He’d rocked gently as he’d read from a book on a park bench. He’d seemed so mysterious, so different, that Kristina had been a bit frightened.

  This small, fierce boy in her plane was mysterious and different too. And also, perhaps, a bit frightening.

  But it wasn’t because Julian was Jewish, Kristina realised. It was because he was Julian: clever and ruthless and full of surprises.

  “We should have gone to England last year,” Julian said bitterly. “My father left it too late. He didn’t want to let down the school. But he knew what was coming – I mean, we all knew, didn’t we? Sort of.”

  “We didn’t know it would be as bad as it is,” Kristina said. She looked up at the sky as she leaned back to talk to him. “We didn’t know the Russians would join the Germans. That’s what just happened this morning. And even up until yesterday, we thought we’d be able to do something to stop the worst from happening. You don’t believe the worst is going to happen until it’s actually here.”

  Yesterday. It had only been yesterday, and the day before, for both of them.

  Kristina saw again Leopold’s blood spattering across the windscreen of his P‑11 and squeezed her eyes shut.

  After a moment, she drew in a sharp breath and opened her eyes. She couldn’t afford to waste time sitting here. It wouldn’t be long before German soldiers arrived – or Russian ones.

  “The plan’s changed again since the Russians have invaded us too,” Kristina said. “I’m supposed to join the Polish Air Force in France now. But I don’t think I’ll be able to fly all the way there, and I have to go to Budapest to get a passport first. You can come with me and get a passport too.”

  “I have a passport,” Julian told her. “Well, I have Dad’s passport, and it’s got my name on it. I found it in his desk with his other things. And the chocolate coins. We have family in New York as well as London, and the New York ones always send us chocolate coins for Hanukkah. But that’s months away. Dad must have been saving the coins, hiding them until later, because they were with the gun and the money and the maps—”

  Kristina jerked her head around, interrupting Julian, “You have—”

  “Not much money,” he said hastily.

  But it wasn’t money she wanted.

  “Maps! You have maps?” Kristina cried. “Stop talking and hand them over.”

  She reached one expectant hand back towards the rear cockpit. She heard Julian shuffling around behind her, and then she closed her fingers over a thick wad of folded linen paper. He’d just handed her the one thing that might prove to be just as precious as fuel.

  She laid the maps in her lap and steadied her trembling hands against the RWD‑8’s control column. Then Kristina flicked through the small collection.

  There was a tattered school map of Poland, showing different geographical areas. There was a new map swallowing up Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany as “Greater Germany” – well, that was only helpful if you wanted to avoid it. A road atlas for Northern Italy was more useful, but she’d have to get there first.

  And then Kristina struck gold – a tourist map of the Carpathian Mountains. She would have to cross them if she wanted to fly straight to Budapest.

  Julian waited behind her, still hidden beneath Kristina’s tunic, full of secret grief and determination. She wanted to get rid of him as soon as she possibly could, but there was no doubt that it was useful having him along with her. There was the pistol that he wasn’t afraid to use, the magical chocolate coins that had fuelled her plane, and now these maps. What else was Julian hiding in his schoolbag of tricks?

  “Julian, do you have a notebook and pencil?” Kristina asked.

  “Her
e,” he replied.

  She reached back into the cockpit and found his small, cold, rough hand offering her exactly what she’d asked for.

  “Can you keep watch for me?” Kristina said. “Peek out on each side and let me know if you see anyone coming to check us out.” Kristina felt nervous now about keeping her head down in the cockpit. She didn’t want to be taken by surprise by anyone, friend or foe. “I need a bit of time to plan a route.”

  “All right,” Julian said.

  Next stop, Budapest, Kristina thought. Just as soon as we conquer the Carpathians.

  CHAPTER 14

  It was over five hundred kilometres to Budapest, and Kristina reckoned she had plenty of fuel with her tanks full. It would take about five hours. But from looking at the map, the navigation wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d feared. She could follow the railroad, and that would guide her over the Carpathian Mountains. After that, she would pick up the Tisa River for the second part of the journey.

  Kristina folded the map carefully, so she’d be able to refer to it in flight. Then she climbed out of the plane once more. No one was nearby.

  “Jump out quick,” she told Julian. “Have a pee behind the wing if you need to and then get back in. I’ll go around the other side – it’ll be faster than taking turns.”

  Julian was fast and careful while climbing out and was back in the rear cockpit before Kristina had put her tunic on again and was ready to swing the propeller.

  Kristina couldn’t see another plane anywhere in the sky as she took off. But to the north and the east, ominous trails of black smoke rose here and there, darkening the horizons. Poland was burning.

  Kristina flew south‑west.

  *

  The calm of the cold sky above the Carpathian peaks felt dreamlike after yesterday’s hellish horror. Shreds of mountain cloud tore over the forests and valleys below. The green tips of trees were now beginning to fade to autumn colours of gold and tawny brown.

  Kristina flew high. It was cold at two thousand metres above sea level, but she would use less fuel flying high, and it was safer to be well above the mountain tops. She didn’t dare go much higher for fear of not being able to breathe. Kristina and Julian didn’t have flight helmets, and they couldn’t talk to each other in the air.

  Somewhere down below, the Polish Army was retreating. Civilians were fleeing, ripe grain was burning, people were arguing over train fares and passports, children were crying, wounded soldiers were bleeding. Up here there was nothing but wind and the beautiful mountain landscape rolling away endlessly on all sides.

  Kristina could see the fine thread of the railroad as it wound its way across the landscape, but she couldn’t see any boundaries anywhere. The world was all one enormous tapestry.

  Her tears dried cold on her face in the high wind.

  *

  After two hours freezing her face off flying into a headwind, Kristina came to the spot between two small towns where the railway line crossed the Tisa River.

  She changed her course to follow the Tisa – even though the sky was empty, she felt safer away from the railroad.

  A few minutes later, Kristina landed in a field so she and Julian could stretch their legs. They ate the last of the apples but saved Julian’s stash of chocolate coins. Kristina thought she’d never been so hungry in her life.

  “Everything looks so peaceful from high up,” Julian said.

  “I know,” Kristina said. She watched the boy scratching at the skin of his knuckles and saw the backs of his fists were raw. “What’s wrong with your hands?” she asked.

  “Eczema,” Julian replied. “It gets worse when I’m upset. My hands were fine last week. Now I just want to tear them off. Is it much further to Budapest?”

  “Another two or three hours,” Kristina told him. “But I won’t have to fly so high, so it won’t be as cold.”

  “When we get there, I can help you get your passport at the embassy,” Julian said.

  Kristina thought this was highly unlikely. “Do you speak Hungarian?” she asked.

  “Better than that. I speak German. My parents ran a language school,” Julian reminded her. “I speak French too. You could take me to France with you – it would get me closer to England.”

  “I expect someone in authority will take the plane away from me once we get to Budapest,” Kristina said. “It’ll be assigned to someone more important. Polish planes are worth their weight in gold now, even unarmed ones like mine. Most of our combat aircraft have been shot down. We’ll have to fly French planes when we regroup. So once we’ve sorted out the passports, you’re on your own.”

  Julian’s expression turned bleak and distant, and his green eyes were unreadable.

  “There are trains and you have money,” Kristina told him heartlessly. “Just make sure you stay out of Greater Germany.”

  *

  The Tisa River wound southward within a wide green plain. Kristina knew that she would easily find her way to Budapest by picking up the railroad again at a river crossing about a hundred kilometres south of the city. Then all she had to do was follow the train tracks until she reached Budapest.

  But as she flew on that clear September afternoon, something new began to make her uneasy.

  Kristina wasn’t flying as high now, and she could see more detail on the ground below. Wherever there was a railroad junction or a train station, crowds of people were waiting. A river of trucks and buses seemed to move slowly to and from these meeting places, collecting and distributing people. She saw large canvas tents being erected in town squares, and people waiting outside schools and civic buildings.

  It didn’t take much imagination to guess what was going on: the Hungarian authorities were trying to set up a system to deal with the thousands of Polish refugees who had fled to the safety of their nearest neighbours.

  Kristina didn’t believe she’d get to jump to the front of any of those queues just because she was an Air Force liaison pilot. And she knew that Julian would be right at the back – a half‑grown Jewish boy all by himself.

  It will be better when you get closer to Budapest, Leopold’s voice in her head told her cheerfully, as Kristina sat alone in the windy pilot’s cockpit with her thoughts.

  But it wasn’t better. The railway junctions were bigger here. In one place she flew over what looked like an entire temporary town in a school playing field. It had been filled with tents and makeshift sheds.

  Julian saw it too. Kristina turned around to look at him, and he was half standing in his cockpit, gripping the sides of the seat as he looked down. His black hair whipped in the wind and his teeth were bared and clenched. Julian looked as if he were in pain.

  He was too clever not to know that this would be his future.

  Maybe if I go to the far side of the city, the routes in will be less crowded, Kristina thought.

  She didn’t see an airfield and she didn’t even know if one existed. She couldn’t take the plane right into the centre of Budapest. She had less than an hour’s flying time of fuel left.

  She was going to have to land.

  CHAPTER 15

  Kristina flew low over an area of rich, sprawling houses on the western outskirts of the city. In the golden sunlight of the early September evening she found the perfect landing place: an empty football field at the edge of a park.

  She touched down lightly on the grass. Between the football field and a nearby tram stop was a grove of pine trees with an open‑air picnic pavilion beneath them. The ordinary, pretty scene seemed more than five hundred kilometres away from yesterday’s battle at Birky. It was so peaceful that it was confusing.

  Kristina shut down the engine.

  “Well, here we are,” she announced. “We’ll have to walk or see if someone can give us a ride into the city.”

  “We can take the tram,” Julian said behind her. “But won’t the embassy be closed? It’s Sunday.”

  Kristina leaned her head against the plane’s control column, sudde
nly exhausted. Where were they going to sleep? Wouldn’t there be an enormous queue at the passport office, even if it wasn’t open? Should they get in line and spend the night there, holding their places? What about food? She was starving. Five hours of flying in one day was hard work, even in peacetime. Kristina had never been in the air for so long with nothing in her stomach but a few apples, or on so little sleep.

  Julian was hungry too, but not as tired. He was still thinking clearly.

  “There’s a garage over there by the tram stop, and a petrol station,” he said. “Let’s see if we can get something to eat there.”

  “You said you have money – is it Hungarian money?” Kristina asked.

  “Some of it. And some in other currencies too,” Julian answered. “It was part of Dad’s plan for getting to England.”

  Kristina noticed that he didn’t tell her how much money he had.

  “You could refuel your plane,” Julian said.

  Kristina hadn’t even thought about refuelling the plane. She’d been focused on handing it back to the Air Force once she found someone with the proper authority. But of course a pilot would have to fly the plane out of this football field. Maybe Kristina herself would have to come back for it. And it would be much more useful full of fuel than empty.

  “These people aren’t going to be like the mechanics back in Poland,” Kristina said. “They’ll make us pay, and I don’t have any money …”

  “Kristina, I’ll pay,” Julian said, climbing out of the rear cockpit. “I’ll pay, and then we can go to France together.”

  And there it was again: Leopold’s voice in her head.

  Wouldn’t it be amazing to fly to France all the way from Poland? Leopold said.

  It was almost as if he were speaking to her. She could imagine so clearly exactly what Leopold would say, what he’d do.

  Think of it – soaring over the beautiful French Riviera coast! his voice came again. You have your own plane. What do you want to stand in line at the embassy for?