“Chocolate?”
“It’s my fantasy. If you don’t like it, you can get your own.”
He laughed. “I like it just fine. Chocolate it is, then. But…it’s okay to be nervous.”
“Thanks. Is it that obvious?”
“It’s fine. Come on. I need to teach you the controls before it’s too dark to see.” He took her hand, helping her onto the wing near the observer’s seat and feeling the warmth of her touch spread up his arm. He let go before it burned him, then quickly got on with the lesson. He gestured to a contraption that resembled a microscope, mounted near her seat. “This device is how you’ll track your targets. All pilots begin as observers when we’re training, so I’ve had my wicked way with these spotting scopes, or at least the kind made in Britain. I’m assuming this model functions the same way. Basically, it works by taking a reading with this attached stopwatch on a fixed object on the ground. You use that as a benchmark. Once you’re doing it for real, you refer back to your previous readings, make adjustments for altitude and speed, and then wait for the target to cross the calculated point in your sight. At that precise moment, you release the first bomb using this control lever here, which pulls a cable that is wired to the egg basket, and Bob’s your uncle.”
Ellenor stared at him blankly.
“Right-o. Now, let’s do the math on a sample flight. Say we’re at four thousand feet and advancing at three-quarter speed dead into the wind to eliminate drift, and we—”
“Stop.”
“Yes?”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
He smiled, having barely been able to hold it in. “I am. Actually, the plan is to forget this sighting mechanism and fly only a hundred feet from the ground so you can slip the bombs right into their hip pockets.”
She swatted him on the arm. “This is serious.”
“Is it?”
“Men will die tonight. I will kill them, me. I can think of nothing more serious than that.”
“You won’t kill anyone. The ack-ack crews will be called to their guns only if they’re alerted of incoming enemy aircraft. They don’t just sit around their cannons trading tobacco rations when there’s nothing to do. I doubt anyone will be posted there when we make our surprise appearance.”
“How can you be sure?”
“What other option do we have, El? Let our French cousins get slaughtered when the raid arrives tomorrow morning?” In way of empathy, he tried to remember his first time on a combat assignment, his virgin outing, but the images intersected in ways that made no sense. Each time he faced off against a man in another plane, he accepted his own death, and that acceptance muddled his memory. “It’s not going to be easy. But I got you into this sordid ordeal, and I’ll damn sure do everything in my power to get you to the other side.”
“And where is this other side?”
“I told you I’m working on it. Hildegard has a range of at least three hundred miles, depending on the direction of the wind, which gives us some options.”
“Options for what?”
“For where we’ll go next. Honestly, I’ve no idea where we’ll be this time tomorrow, how we’ll sleep, what we’ll eat. I’m just trying to get us through the next few hours. I ruined your life, so the least I can do is give you a shot at another one.”
Her gaze was soft. “My life isn’t ruined.”
“Yes, well, give me time, and I’m sure I’ll get around to it.” The pressure of her eyes made him more nervous than he ever was in combat. He tried to sidestep it by pointing at the machine gun mounted on the swivel track that encircled Ellenor’s seat. “Don’t worry about the Parabellum here. I don’t anticipate that you’ll be peeling off any bullets at the ack-acks, but if this gun is in your way so you can’t see when you’re releasing the bombs, you can unlock it right here and simply slide it around the ring. Got it?” He showed her how it was done.
“I think so.”
“Sarah is worried that we can’t hit our targets in the dark. My solution, which I wisely did not tell her, is that we fly so low to the ground that we can’t miss.”
“Flying low sounds very dangerous.”
“To some, perhaps. I’m shitty at most things, El, but on the average day I’m an above-average pilot, and on certain rare days I too am quite rare.” At that moment, the sun melted into the sky’s edge. Alec consulted the pocket watch Sarah had given him. He could barely see its face. “It’s almost eight-thirty. We should get our things ready.”
“We have four hours to wait.”
“What would you have us do, then? Sit and watch the stars?”
“Does that sound so terrible? I realize that we’re not normal people, but normal people do that kind of thing to pass the time. Besides, if I don’t stop thinking about what’s coming at midnight, I’m going to be sick. So unless you want me vomiting all over this plane—”
“Say no more.” He jumped from the wing and helped her down. Before she could utter another word, he retrieved Magnild’s quilt and unfurled it in a choice location near the fuselage, creating an amphitheater of sorts from which they could count the constellations. Feeling athletic and loose like he always did when a flight was imminent, he dropped onto the blanket, extended his legs, and leaned back on his hands. Then he held his breath.
After a few moments, Ellenor sat down beside him.
Alec exhaled, pretending to study the stars.
****
On the advice of a dandelion, Ellenor Jantz had come to Germany in search of adventure. The wish she’d made back then had unfolded as all wishes do—in ways we cannot anticipate, in moments we can’t foresee. Despite the fear of settling into the observer’s seat and making herself a part of the violence she abhorred, she would enter that dark place when it was time and trust she’d find her way out. It would be the scariest thing she’d ever done.
“I don’t have a penny,” Alec said, sitting beside her on the quilt.
“I’m sorry?”
“For your thoughts. I’d offer you one, but I’m afraid I’m rather destitute.”
“So am I.” She knew exactly the amount of money she’d saved in the little cedar coffer in her room at Father’s house. She could not return there without being arrested by the airmen who occupied the property. Her money had probably already been confiscated, along with her clothing, her books, and her tortoiseshell brush. “I hope they leave the hives alone.”
“What will happen to the bees with you no longer tending them?”
“If no one disturbs them, they’ll do what they do best, turning nectar into honey and using it to get through the winter. They don’t need my help for that. And when they outgrow their hive next spring, they’ll find somewhere new.”
“You mean like us?”
“I suppose so…assuming you’ve decided on somewhere for us to go.”
“Do you like surprises?”
“Is that your way of admitting that you still haven’t found a suitable destination?”
“There’s a lot to be said for spontaneity. But the breeze is blowing from the northwest, which will naturally nudge Hildegard to the southeast. Hopefully there’s something in that direction that isn’t being torn to pieces by the war.”
Ellenor tried to summon a mental map of Europe but found it difficult to concentrate. She knew Italy was down there somewhere, but it sounded awfully far away. The only things that made sense were the near things, the things she could reach and shape and bend to her will.
“We’ll just fly until we see that veranda,” Alec said. “Then we can toast to our success and to Sarah’s good health, and we’ll sing pub songs all night until we collapse.”
“I don’t know any pub songs. I’ll just hum along in the background.”
“Nonsense. I’ll teach you.”
“I look forward to it.”
“No reason to wait.” He kept his gaze skyward but tilted his head as if sorting through a catalog of bawdy tunes.
“If you’re th
inking of serenading me, then this is probably not the best time…”
And then Alec began to sing.
Beside a German shell hole, when the smoke had cleared away,
beneath a busted Camel, its former pilot lay;
his throat was cut by the bracing wire, the tank had hit his head,
and, coughing out his dental work, these parting words he said:
“Oh, I’m going to a better land—they binge there every night;
the cocktails grow on bushes, so everyone stays tight;
they’ve torn up all the calendars, they’ve busted all the clocks,
and little drops of whiskey come trickling down the rocks.”
Alec’s voice gained strength, carrying into the darkness.
The pilot breathed these last few gasps before he passed away:
“I’ll tell you how it happened. My rudders didn’t stay.
The motor wouldn’t hit at all, the struts were far too few,
A shot went through the petrol tank and let it all leak through.
Oh, I’m going to a better land where the motors always run,
Where guns don’t jam and airplane wings don’t melt before the sun.
They’ve got no Sops, they’ve got no Spads, they’ve got no DH.4s,
and little frosted juleps are served at all the stores.”
Ellenor laughed without reservation, clapping half a dozen times. “Bravo!”
Alec dipped his head in a little bow and looked pleased with her reaction.
“You, sir, are full of surprises.”
“You should see me when I’m one hundred percent.” He held up his patched-up hand. “Give me a few days, and I’ll show you my penchant for ballads on an Irish fiddle.”
Before she could rein herself in, Ellenor gave in to the candor of the moment and carefully took his hand. “May I?”
He nodded slowly.
Ellenor loosened the white cotton strip and uncoiled it. Alec watched her. She could make out no details now that the night had fully settled around them, but she traced the contours of the wound with her fingertip. “You caught the bullet.”
“Knocked it out of the way, really.”
“Impressive, nonetheless.”
“In my line of work, reflexes are worth more than money or morality.”
She completed her finger’s journey around his injury. “Does it still hurt?”
“A little. Let’s see if we can do something about that.” He closed his hand around hers. Then he took the bandage she’d removed and slowly wrapped it around their joined fingers. She stared at him as he did it, binding the fabric so that their palms were pressed together, one layer of white cotton on top of the next. Her hand was tight against his. Then he tucked the end of the bandage into itself and said, “That’s better.”
When Ellenor was fifteen, she’d witnessed her first snow in New Mexico. Her papa had taken the family by train to visit relatives in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The flakes had dazzled her, silvery-white in the sun, tingling her bare arms as she raised her hands to the sky. Looking upward into that falling snow was like moving through the stars. Nothing had truly taken her breath away since then—until now.
“Everywhere I fly from this point on,” Alec said, “I fly with you.”
She wanted the same, wanted it in a way that made no sense. Leaning into him, she used her free hand to find his face. He used his to capture her hair behind her head, bringing her even closer. Their foreheads touched. They remained like that for a long time, sharing warmth and anticipation. Ellenor’s breath came so lightly that she felt weightless; only their bound fists anchored them and kept her from floating away.
He kissed her.
She pushed her mouth hard against his. All of her joy and longing was contained in that kiss, and so too was her sadness and fear. Everything she’d lost and everything she stood to gain was pushed into him as she exhaled. When she took a breath, she drew him in. He tasted like whiskey and smoke and the cherry candies they’d shared in Roby’s truck.
She fell back onto the quilt, and with her hand still bound to his, pulled him on top of her.
Though binding their hands together had seemed devoutly romantic a moment ago, now it impeded Alec in his attempts to divest himself of his trousers and her of her skirt. She assisted him. Working together—and giggling occasionally—they managed to rid themselves of just enough clothing that their bare skin touched in a way that made Ellenor cast away what little trepidation remained. She locked her legs around him and made a predatory sound when he ran his tongue up her neck.
She reached between her legs and pulled him inside of her.
The two of them moved in perfect synchronization, as if they’d never be separated. The stars high above looked on with cold indifference, knowing that nothing—not even starlight—was forever.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alec dreamed of bones in the mud. He ran bent at the waist through a trench so filled with water and piss that every stride was a struggle. His rifle was frozen to his hands, the tips of his fingers purple with frostbite, like hardened grapes. Exploding shells blew dirt cascades across the lip of the trench, where bloated bodies floated in the muck. And wildly overhead, untouched by it all, flew a single, soaring plane, its pilot an angel with muslin wings.
“Alec, listen.”
He opened his eyes instantly, the dream vanishing. He saw the night sky framing Ellenor’s face, her hair loose. “You’re beautiful,” he told her.
“Kind of you to say, but the bells are ringing.”
The distant chimes of Basilique Saint-Vincent carried across the darkness.
She kissed him. “It’s time.”
He got dressed without speaking. At some point they had untied their joined hands. Alec saw it all over again, her rolling on top of him, her black sweater pulled over her head and cast away—
The dream returned. Men drowned in their own goddamned trench. He could have been one of them, a member of the infantry, where human life seemed to have no value. Perhaps he should have been. Only luck and reflexes had saved him.
As he pulled on his shirt, he bumped against her. He turned, barely able to see her but sensing the awkwardness their silence had created. In an effort to dispel it, he said, “When you meet my mother one day, it will be best not to mention this part.”
“If I meet your mother, I’m telling her everything.”
He smiled to himself. They were going to be fine.
Alec pulled on his boots. Behind him, Ellenor did the same.
As mighty as Hildegard might have been, her petrol tanks were insufficient to fly all the way from here to the Channel and then to England. Alec loved the idea of returning with Ellenor on his arm, the prettiest woman in all of Derbyshire. The two of them could settle into the sedate business of news printing and attend Saturday evening socials at the civic hall.
It sounded dreadful. Boring and dreadful. And that northwesterly wind had other ideas.
Once dressed, he helped her to her feet. Before she could say another word, he pulled her close, resting his chin on her head and breathing the perfume of her hair. Every flight was dangerous, this more than most. They’d be moving at a hazardously low altitude in full darkness, so close to the ground that any German with a sidearm was a threat. If one of those flaming onions managed to let loose, they were finished. Even though Ellenor would be seated directly behind him, there was a solid chance he’d never speak to her again.
He knew she understood this. He felt it in her embrace.
The cathedral bells had stopped ringing. At this very moment, Sarah and her friends were shoving burning bundles into windows.
“You’ve got to pull the propeller now,” he said.
“Lucky for me I’m an expert.”
He was afraid to release her. “Listen, whatever happens to us tonight—”
She put her fingers over his lips. “Tell me everything when we land.”
That was all she needed t
o say. Alec didn’t necessarily share her faith in the outcome, but that turbulent energy was back in his blood, the borderline madness that always gripped him before a flight. Win or lose, live or die, he would do it with his teeth bared to the wind. “You ready for this?”
By way of response, she put on her pith helmet and tightened the strap below her chin.
He smiled, infatuated with her courage, and then pulled himself into the plane.
****
Propeller churning, wheels thumping, tail skid plowing a furrow in the field, the aircraft built speed as Ellenor hooked the safety belt across her lap. The goggles they’d given her dangled at her neck, and she hurriedly got them fixed over her eyes as the breeze in her face became a gale. Each rut the wheels encountered sent a jolt through her wooden stool and all the way up her spine. She clamped her teeth together. Directly in front of her, Alec’s scarf fluttered like a flag.
Then everything changed. The plane ceased contact with the ground. The banging and heaving were replaced with an exhilarating pressure that forced her into her seat; the fight against gravity had commenced. Tilted backward, she watched the yawning night sky spread wide and vast before her. For a few moments, the plane almost seemed to stall, caught in a defiance of physics. Then, by brute determination, it muscled its way higher and leveled off.
Alec swung them toward Metz.
Ellenor took the first of what would be hundreds of glances over the side of the plane, first the left and then the right, trying to get her bearings. The land below lay in shadow. By touch she located the lever that was hitched to the release cable. Having found it, she let go, afraid of yanking it by accident and vaporizing a city block. Metz appeared, a glimmer of tiny lights from lamps and fires and gas-powered bulbs along the streets.
She reminded herself to breathe deliberately, one after the next.
Alec lowered them closer to the ground. They skimmed the treetops and rushed toward the city’s defenses at sixty, then seventy miles an hour. Nothing earthbound could match these speeds.
Alec dipped the nose slightly. He held up his right hand in a signal that appeared in silhouette against the sky. He pointed down repeatedly.
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