Shoot him? Her eyes went to the machine gun mounted on the ring that encircled her seat. What had Alec called it? A para-something. He’d shown her how to unlock it so that it could be rolled out of the way as she worked. Was he now expecting her to fire the damn thing?
In her mounting hysteria, she almost laughed aloud. But if she just sat here, paralyzed now that her last bomb had dropped without effect, she would die, and so would Alec, and that was unacceptable.
As Alec hooked the plane into an upward, right-leaning arc, Ellenor freed the gun as he’d taught her. The weapon instantly rolled along its track in the direction their momentum pushed it. She caught it with trembling hands, then leaned into it, holding it like she’d held the rifle she borrowed from Father’s cabinet whenever she visited her hives. She’d used that old bolt-action Mannlicher to scare off foxes and a pair of curious wolves, and of course she’d almost killed Alec with it, and now she repeated what it had taught her: put the stock against the shoulder and sight along the barrel. She remembered to release the safety and chamber the first round.
She peered through the sight and into the swirling chaos of the night.
Everything moved: the plane, the sky, the ground. Nothing was stable anymore. The enemy plane flashed by.
Ellenor pulled the trigger.
The recoil ripped the weapon from her hand. The string of bullets burned tiny red slashes in the dark. She tried to regain control, but Alec was swooping maniacally to dodge the German, who was sending expert bursts at them every twenty seconds. Ellenor, struggling against vertigo, could barely keep the gun braced against her shoulder; she had little chance of hitting a moving target. Tears trapped in her goggles made it nearly impossible to see.
She clamped down on the trigger and didn’t let go.
****
Gustov coolly nudged his stick and tipped the Fokker sideways to avoid the river of crimson-coated bullets suddenly pouring at him from the gunner’s seat. He realized that it was most likely Ellenor Jantz at the other end of that barrage, which was so spectacular a notion that Gustov couldn’t help but shake his head in admiration. He should have met her under different circumstances, at an opera in Monte Carlo, perhaps, or at an equestrian event in Prague. Now he was going to be forced to kill her, which saddened him in an honest and almost boyish way. Innocents had died every day since July of 1914, but one more seemed too much. Her bullets washed the night air without ever endangering him. She had no idea what she was doing; the machine gun was too much for her. That made it even sadder.
For a brief moment, Gustov allowed himself a fantasy: a single shot into the Englander’s skull, the pilotless Rumpler gliding mostly safely to the ground, Miss Jantz surviving the crash…
He sighed.
The Rumpler continued evasive maneuvers, now well away from the outskirts of Metz and crisscrossing the sky while attempting to take on altitude. Obviously the Englander planned to use the darkness to escape, so it was imperative that Gustov stay on top of him. Pursuit became a circus of twists, feints, and darting turns that tested Gustov’s skill at the stick. Lining up another shot was far from easy, especially with bullets flying back at him from the inexperienced but determined gunner. Gustov danced through them.
He fired in return.
He sent a precise line of lead into the Rumpler’s undercarriage, emptying his first of two ammo drums. Though he couldn’t gauge the damage in the dark, he assumed he’d chiseled away much of the landing apparatus. It wasn’t a direct hit, but that’s how you brought down one of these big bombers—you bled it to death with a thousand razor cuts.
Gustov cleared his mind and let instinct work the controls. He wove through Miss Jantz’s bullets and forgot who she was so that he could get on with this business of killing her. In this war, there could be no opera in Monte Carlo or any kind of nice ending at all.
****
Alec ran out of options. The goddamn Hun on his ass was capable of witchcraft at the stick. No matter what Alec tried—from the classic cutbacks taught by the masters to the gambits of a lunatic—the German countered him. Ellenor’s constant rat-a-tat kept the man at bay, but every minute or so he lunged forward and placed another surgical stitch into Hildegard’s wings. The beautiful old bird would not last much longer. Alec needed another option.
Should he land? He considered the outcome. Prisoners of war were treated humanely, especially if they were officers and certainly if they were women. Alec would spend the rest of the war in confinement. Could he do that? Of course he could; the men of the Corbin-Dawes line might be bourgeois nobodies, but they had spine. But he would more than likely never see Ellenor again. They’d be separated. Even if they both survived incarceration, he would lose her forever. At least landing would save her life.
And that was how he decided to set Hildegard down and surrender.
He reduced speed, leveled out, sent the signal he was giving up. Trusting that the German was a man of honor, Alec resisted the urge to fight until his wings were shredded, choosing to provide Ellenor a chance at a life beyond tonight. He would face repercussions for what he’d done, and so would she. But he trusted she’d come out on the other side in one piece, and she’d look back on this and think kindly of him for making the wise choice for once in his life. Sarah, too, would be thankful.
He removed his goggles and felt the wind against his cheeks one last time. Whatever they did to him in the coming weeks or years, they would never let him fly again.
****
Gustov was about to pulverize the Rumpler when it suddenly went limp. The Englander slowed, cruising at a mere hundred kilometers an hour—and now down to eighty. The man presented a target that even a wet rookie couldn’t have missed.
“He’s white-flagging it,” Gustov realized.
The relief that flooded his chest surprised him. Miss Jantz would not die today. Gustov released the trigger. A defeated opponent was yielding the field, and Gustov would nobly accept. He relaxed, nodded to himself, and tucked in directly behind the Englander. The feeling of satisfaction was more potent than he’d anticipated. This was a fight that would make him famous. He’d hunted down a stolen aircraft, beaten the thief in the air, and run the wounded plane to ground to be repaired and sent aloft for the Fatherland again. The story would write itself on the front page of the papers.
What would he say to Ellenor Jantz?
What would she say to him?
He rolled his eyes at himself. Fool. More important things awaited: accolades, toasts, a good night’s sleep. Flexing the fingers that had turned to granite around the stick, he followed the Englander toward the ground.
****
“What the hell are you doing?” Ellenor shouted.
“Saving your arse, thank you very much.”
“He’ll kill us!”
“Little chance of that, actually. Fairly certain our chap’s a man of the code.”
Ellenor, scowling, looked back. The German plane was only forty yards behind them, framed against the stars.
Could she simply give up?
They’d been through so much. And what had happened between them a few hours ago was something worth defending. Ellenor needed to see where they would go next, what they’d accomplish together, what this handsome daredevil would say when he realized he loved her. But the only way to discover any of that was to eliminate the German plane, which meant shooting it down.
The machine gun had proven impossible to control. Every time she’d held the trigger down, the damn thing sent tremors into her upper body and ruined her otherwise accurate aim. Using a fully automatic gun required either training or luck, both of which were in short supply. Ellenor knew she had almost no chance of putting all of those shots into the German who chased them.
“I don’t need to hit him with a hundred bullets,” she said to herself. She needed only one.
She leaned down gently, cheek against the weapon’s smooth steel. If she touched the trigger lightly, just a single stroke, she could
release a round without having her bones jarred to powder by the fiendish recoil.
Their plane continued its descent. The German mirrored them.
Ellenor closed one eye.
She could not see the pilot directly, but she knew his approximate position. The propeller made a perfect circle; she aimed at the top of its arc. Her papa had taught her to shoot varmints that came to snatch the chickens, and she recalled his lessons about sight picture and center mass. Ellenor had killed more than one opossum and raccoon, and they were tiny creatures—the propeller’s circle was at least eight feet across. Behind it was the engine, and behind that was the pilot who was bringing them down.
The wind swirled her hair. The stars looked on.
Ellenor fired.
****
Gustov was checking his gauges to ensure a proper touch-down when his prop exploded.
Something struck the blade. The wood split. Then, almost instantly, its own centrifugal force obliterated it. Fragments and jagged bits showered him.
He swore and tugged the stick. He lost almost all his forward speed, the engine still humming but the entire propeller gone, part of it lodged like a spear head in one of the wings.
The Fokker glided.
Gustov fought back. He scooped the nose into position, slapped his hand to the gun, and seared off the remains of his ammo drum. Tracers peppered the air all around the fleeing Rumpler. Gustov willed the slugs toward their target, biting down on his teeth in anger, but his bus had already drifted too far, like a powerless swimmer against the tide.
He watched in horror as the Englander took on new speed and climbed straight up.
“Shit!” He slammed the ball of his fist against the cockpit, again and again. Nothing could be done. Just like that, it was over.
Gustov shut off the engine and let the Fokker float wherever the hell physics wanted it to go. He kept it on a stable path, unable to do anything but make sure he landed with his wheels right-side down.
With the motor silent, everything was very quiet as he fell.
He looked up, thinking no thoughts at all, watching Ellenor Jantz and the Englander disappear.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Hildegard reached ten thousand feet, Alec finally realized what had happened.
He laughed. That sound was part surprise and part relief at being free and alive. His body still buzzed, and he was a little bit inebriated from being shot at repeatedly and surviving. His head ached; he struggled with disbelief. He owed the victory not to his own skill, but to the woman in the seat behind him.
He reached a hand over his shoulder.
Ellenor found it immediately. He squeezed her fingers: Damn brilliant work, old girl.
She squeezed back.
Alec wanted nothing more than to land, spin around, and embrace her. He would kiss her with the full force of his emotions, the good and bad alike, and to hell with the rest of the world and its petty dip-shit bickering. But it was still foreign territory down there. Monsters still lurked. He could not risk putting down.
A small part of him actually felt bad for the German, who’d been caught by surprise in the middle of what he assumed was a truce. Had Ellenor violated an unspoken rule of warfare that would one day come back and demand some kind of karmic recompense? Perhaps. But not today.
He laughed again. Strapped to his seat, there was nothing else he could do.
The wind blew from the northwest, guiding them naturally southeast. Alec settled Hildegard into a steady rhythm in that direction, worrying about her injuries but unable to assess them in the dark. Liberated from her payload, she flew lighter. Still, her dual tanks would be nearly depleted by the time dawn arrived. Until then, Alec would ferry them across Germany, keeping the western Front on his right, reaching for whatever waited beyond.
****
Ellenor reclined in the observer’s seat, wrapped in blankets and scarves. Only her eyes were visible, wide open behind her goggles, staring into the lightless morning sky. She thought of dandelions and bashert and the way the German’s propeller had burst like a sand dollar struck by a fist. She thought of Alec’s hands on her bare back and of the taste of his lips. She thought of things she’d never seen before, the unknown town where they would eat their next meal.
Most of all she thought of flying.
“May it never end,” she whispered, and closed her eyes.
****
Just before sunrise, a late-model Adler bearing the Air Service insignia murmured to a stop in front of a telegraph station five kilometers east of Metz. Two men climbed from the car. The driver was like drivers everywhere: blunt and colorless and in need of a better-fitting tunic. The passenger wore ankle boots, clean puttees, and a single-breasted coat with officer’s marks on the arms. His hair was longer than regulation, which indicated his assigned post was so removed from the action that no one gave a damn how he looked. He yawned and stretched and seemed like a man who had not yet eaten his breakfast or smoked his first pipe of the day.
Gustov sat in the grass, cross-legged, and watched them.
He’d already worked through the possibilities. In the hours while he’d waited to be picked up after sending his report with the help of a bleary-eyed radio man, he had time to sort it out. He assumed one of two fates awaited him. They would reassign him, or they would simply drive him back to his squadron and let him resume his duties. Both options came with a severe reprimand, as he’d not only managed to let a bomber be stolen out from under him, but he’d permitted that very plane to destroy German property, kill German troops, and then fly away unpunished. If Gustov’s family weren’t politically and fiscally connected to so many people with important-sounding names, he might have ended up demoted to gunner or—far worse—transferred to the infantry.
He stood up.
The officer approached. In the anemic light from an electrical bulb above the door of the telegraph station, Gustov noted the man’s rank of major. Reluctantly, Gustov saluted.
The major returned the greeting. “Captain Voss, I assume?”
“That is correct, sir.”
“Shot down, I hear.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A pity. Your aircraft?”
“Salvageable.”
“Good.” The major’s demeanor changed. He slouched a bit, as if tired of the formalities so early in the morning. “My name is Baumann. To be entirely honest with you, Voss, the lieutenant-general who dispatched me told me nothing at all about your mission, and frankly I don’t care to know. But I’ve been ordered to bring you to Berlin. Is that acceptable?”
Berlin? Gustov recalculated. Apparently he had more than two possible fates. He hadn’t been to the capital since before the war, and to be summoned there now was unusual, to say the least. Revealing none of this to Baumann, he nodded. “Of course, sir.”
“Glad to hear it.” The major looked relieved; perhaps he’d been expecting resistance. “It’s a considerable drive, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get a bite of food first and a pot of coffee, the blacker the better. Can you recommend a suitable eatery in Metz?”
Gustov assured him that he knew of such a place, and then followed the man to the waiting car. Berlin could mean many things, both good and bad. The city could immortalize you or turn you to a pillar of salt at a glance. Removing his hat, Gustov settled into the rear seat and stared from the window while the driver got them moving toward town.
Without realizing it, his eyes strayed to the southeast.
Epilogue
One hundred and twenty-five miles from Metz, on the banks of the High Rhine, three nations collide. Germany and France grind against each other as they have for years. Beyond the river that runs scarlet with their soldiers’ blood, Switzerland abides, beholden to none. The Swiss border city of Basel, defiantly neutral, offers solace to anyone weary of war.
Though the summer morning is only an hour old, Kjell has been awake for quite some time, having fired his ovens while others slept. His baker
y has persevered while his rivals have lost business during these times of privation and mindful spending, primarily because he keeps to the basics of bread and croissants and doesn’t bother with unnecessary treats. Artfully rendered macarons and creamy religieuse doomed many of his peers. Kjell is sweeping up a flour spill near the window when he sees the man and woman approach.
They hold hands. He is tall and yellow-haired and wearing horseman’s boots. She’s clad in a uniform reminiscent of the military. Kjell has never seen anything like her. Her dark hair falls over her shoulders instead of being pinned away. Her jacket is unbuttoned, revealing the curve of her breasts beneath her sweater.
Kjell knows all his customers, but he does not know them. When they enter his shop, he carefully sets his broom aside.
****
“I don’t know why you’ve brought me here if we have no money,” Ellenor says.
“Who says we have no money?”
She gives him a glance as they observe the array of baked goods. “You need to shave.”
“I’m told that some women find this look attractive.”
“Do these women live in caves?”
He smirks. “Tart.”
She bumps him with her hip. “You haven’t answered my question.”
Alec withdraws a roll of Swiss francs.
“Where on earth did you get that?”
“Sarah. She insisted on looking after me.”
“How much is it?”
“Enough for two days.”
“Two days? And what do we do after that? On day number three? And day four?”
“Find work, I suppose.”
“Find work doing what?”
“I don’t know. Do you think anyone around here needs to hire a handsome pilot and a beautiful machine-gunner?”
Ellenor slides her hand into the crook of his elbow. Smiling, she returns her attention to the loaves, filling herself with their scent. Nothing seems to matter at the moment but choosing the right one. Without looking away from the sourdoughs and pumpernickels and ryes, she says, “Will we live here in Basel?”
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