The Wings of Morning

by Murray Pura

  Zed was at Jude’s side. “He’s no older than you or Flapjack.”

  “No,” Jude agreed.

  “And not a bad-looking chap for a Hun,” tossed out Flapjack.

  “Yeah,” Billy said. “Almost as good-looking as you.”

  Flapjack snorted. “Tell that to Kaiser William’s batman. He’s not even close.”

  “You’re an ace now, Triple One,” said Tex. “And your hands are still clean.”

  Jude shook his head, his eyes remaining on Schleiermacher. “No one’s hands are clean. Not on their side or ours. Not in war or peace.”

  Dear Lyyndy,

  I thought I would kill him. I swear before God, I wanted to kill him. The verses came to mind about Samuel hewing Agag to pieces. But before I could administer the coup de grace, I heard you quoting the Bible to me. All the good Amish verses about mercy and forgiveness and loving your enemies.

  This was all in my imagination, but it was like getting hit in the head by the rock from a slingshot when I was a boy. The verses stunned me. For some soldiers it is given to kill and defend, I don’t know. The Bible never condemns them and never says you can’t be a good soldier and a good Christian. But for those he calls to be Amish, those he tells to be peacemakers, those he says cannot be the ones who shed blood, who are set aside to bring only mercy and peace—well, for them it is a different matter. These Amish and Mennonite and Quaker boys are not permitted to be the killers. That is not why God has given them the breath of life. They are on this earth to be a different kind of soldier.

  I don’t know if I’ve succeeded to God’s satisfaction. I haven’t succeeded to my own. God must be the judge. But at least Schleiermacher’s mother doesn’t have to get a telegram or see an officer at her door tonight. And the mother of the one he would have killed, Billy Skipp, does not have to see an Army Air Service captain at her door either. That is something, isn’t it?

  Love, Jude

  Schleiermacher dined with them at six that night. His wound, which had been caused by a wood fragment high up on his shoulder, had been cleaned and dressed and he wore his right arm in a sling. He jabbed at his food, finding it awkward to cut the meat, but wouldn’t accept any help. The squadron had many questions for him so Jude was kept busy translating back and forth. The men began to call him Heinrich or, as he said he was referred to at his own squadron or Jagdstaffel, Rich. He had been born and raised in Madgeburg, a beautiful medieval city west of Berlin. Yes, he had sisters as beautiful as the city. No, he was not a natural flier. He had been a very poor pilot during training, but finally managed to pass and was given a Pfalz to fly in 1915. His first victory was over a French flier who had survived his crash landing and been taken prisoner. When Tex asked him if he had any brothers flying, Heinrich shook his head.

  “No, only one brother, in the army, on the ground.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He died two years ago. Pneumonia in the trenches.”

  There was an awkward pause in the conversation when Jude translated this. Then Heinrich said in German, If pilots flew in trenches none of us would wish to be pilots and none of us would still be alive. But Jude let the conversation pick up again with questions about Heinrich’s Jagdstaffel and whether or not he had known von Richthofen, and he never translated Schleiermacher’s bitter sentiment.

  At one point Timmy Erwin asked if Jude was able to read from the Squadron Bible in both English and German. Jude said that he could and went to the front of the hall. He announced that the evening’s reading was from Acts. First he read in English and then in German.

  “‘And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.’”

  Jude glanced up from time to time as he read. A few of the pilots had given Schleiermacher dark looks on the airfield and had refused to eat with him, pushing their plates aside and never lifting knife or fork. They continued to glare at the German even as words from the Bible filled the room. But Jude could also see that most of his men accepted the code of the air warrior—what happened in the skies was war but it was not personal. If Schleiermacher had killed several of their friends they had also shot down several of his. Had they been the captured pilot sitting in a German mess, Jude knew most of them hoped they would be treated with the same courtesy and respect they were showing their prisoner.

  Now, in the quiet following the reading from the Bible, the sound of the German aviator getting up from his seat made everyone look his way. He was standing at attention. Then he bowed his head. Out loud, he began slowly to recite the Lord’s Prayer, beginning with the German—Vater unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name— but then switching to English, struggling along as best he could recall.

  “Thy kingdom come,” he said. “Thy will…be done…on earth…as it is in heaven.”

  He struggled for the words of the next phrase. The silence was broken as Zed suddenly spoke the German for “give us this day our daily bread”—Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute.

  Then Tex: “And forgive us our debts.”

  The German nodded, his head still bowed. “Wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigern.”

  Flapjack took up the next line of the prayer: “And lead us not into temptation.”

  Schleiermacher spoke the following verse in English and, as far as Jude could see, the whole squadron joined in, even the pilots who had made it clear they detested him: “But deliver us from evil.”

  The combined voices made the walls of the French farmhouse ring with an ancient strength as Schleiermacher and the men of the squadron completed the prayer. “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.”

  Then a sudden quiet.

  The German looked around him, his eyes soft. “Amen,” he said. “Danke, my fellow aviators.”

  At eleven, Jackson had Heinrich placed in an empty room with a bed and dresser and put an armed guard at the door. Jude remained with him and they talked in German throughout the night. Now it was not about squadrons and planes and Madgeburg and von Richthofen. Instead, they discussed and debated the Christian faith—how it should be lived or how it should not be lived—the Bible, Martin Luther, the Reformation, the Anabaptists, the Swiss Mennonite Jacob Ammann who had founded the Amish movement, why the German soldiers had the phrase Gott mit uns inscribed on their helmets.

  “Don’t you Americans also believe God is with you?” asked Heinrich.

  “I’m sure many Americans do. But at home in Paradise, among the Lapp Amish, my church prays for peace for both sides in this conflict. I have heard our pastors pray for Germany as well as France and Britain. Not for someone to win. But for all of them not to keep losing so many of those men they love.”

  Heinrich didn’t know what to think, and the puzzlement on his face reflected this. “You are a member of a strange church, White Knight. I don’t know what my papa would do with you. He is such a patriot. God and country.” Then he smiled. “Be careful, Judah.” It was the name he used instead of Jude. “If your church keeps this up they could be mistaken for Jesus Christ. And you recall what happened to him.”

  At four in the morning a car came for Heinrich. Jude saw there was another German flier in the vehicle after he had walked outside with Schleiermacher. Heinrich recognized him and leaned in at the open window.

  “Schmidt! Was machst du hier?”

  Schmidt had a sour expression on his face and a guard on either side of him. “My guns jammed.”

  “Ah. Bad luck.”

  “Then my engine jammed.”

  “Ah. Worse luck.”

  “Then I practically landed in an American trench and in minutes they were all over me. Someone stole my sidearm.”


  “Ah. Your luck improves. American food. No mushy peas and cock-a-leekie soup. No frog legs or escargots.”

  “I prefer sauerkraut and bratwurst.”

  Heinrich smiled. “Judah, if the food is no good, Schmidt here and I will have to make our escape.”

  “Good luck. I think they are sending you over the Channel. If you manage to get away you will have to survive on British food for weeks.”

  “Perhaps we will stay put then if they can find us a German cook.” He put out his good hand. “Auf wiedersehen, Judah. If the war ever ends, and we have both survived, look me up in Madgeburg. Ask for my father, the Reverend Schleiermacher. People will direct you.”

  “Danke. And I extend the same invitation. If you are in America make your way to Paradise, Pennsylvania. Whetstone the blacksmith. People will direct you.”

  “Bitte, Judah.”

  “Gott segne dich, Heinrich.” God bless you.

  The American soldiers gave Jude long, suspicious looks and then climbed back into the motorcar and drove off with their prisoners. He went to bed. He had less than four hours sleep before his batman, Spencer Wilcox of Indiana, woke him.

  “Ironwood wants to see you.”

  “What for?” he groaned.

  “Search me.”

  The commanding officer was leaning against his desk sipping a cup of coffee. He picked another cup off his desk and offered it to his captain.

  “Thank you, sir.” Jude took it gratefully, the sides of the cup warm on his fingers.

  “Stand easy, Captain. I hear you were up half the night.”

  “Yes, sir. Heinrich and I were discussing theology—among other things.”

  Jackson barked a laugh. “Heinrich. Theology. I’d like to know what an Amish boy like you has in common with a fighter ace of the German Empire.”

  “Well, we—”

  Jackson put up a hand. “On second thought, I don’t want to know. You’re an ace yourself, Whetstone. The press corps has been ringing my phone off the hook. No one else has ever brought in an enemy pilot alive and landed them right at their own aerodrome. The White Knight is about to achieve something of a celebrity status.”

  “That was not my intention,” Jude responded.

  “I know it wasn’t your intention. Your intention was to bring him in alive and to not kill him. I doubt you ever gave a moment’s thought to how it would look to the rest of the world.” Jackson checked his watch. “You and I have a press conference in fifteen minutes. But that’s not why I hauled you out of the sack.”

  “I’m ready to take the squadron up at any time, sir.”

  “I’m sure you are.” Jackson looked at him over his cup rim. “Did—the German—ever tell you what his fellow pilots thought of you?”

  “Well,” Jude thought back to the night before. “He said they had great respect for me. That it was obvious I could—fly a plane. They felt my tendency to mercy was—naïve—in modern warfare. Of course, they wanted to bring me down. Heinrich said they were aware of my number—Triple One—and the propaganda value of my bloodless victories that made the Germans look like ruthless barbarians and—Americans appear like Sir Galahads in white hats with silver six guns.”

  Jackson nodded. “Saving women and children from the black villain. Doing it with an easy grace and magnanimity. You’re the true man, and the foes you vanquish and permit to live are something less. A number of the Germans take your mercy as a slap in the face, you know.”

  “It is not my intention to insult them.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That’s how they see it. Our intelligence reports indicate that taking you out of the skies isn’t the only thing that matters to the Germans. They’d like to get Rickenbacker and Frank Luke and the Canadians’ Billy Bishop as much or more. But you—you they don’t want to just shoot down. They want to provoke you to kill one of their own and then shoot you down. That way they can tarnish your reputation and make you look as bad as anyone else. No American Sir Galahad. No White Knight.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jude admitted, finishing his coffee. “Heinrich did mention that in passing.”

  “In passing.” Jackson stood up and paced the room with his hands in his pockets. “What you did yesterday, bringing in one of their greatest aces and forcing him to land at an American aerodrome, will be seen as the ultimate insult. They’ll be scouring the skies for you, setting out bait, pushing you to kill, then knocking you out of the air. I used to think they’d be happy enough to take you prisoner. Now I no longer think that. Have you any idea what your mechanic, Mickey, has been up to while you slept?”

  Jude frowned. “No. What’s the problem?”

  “It’s not my problem. I think it’s a good idea. But it could make you even more of a target. He’s painted a white knight on horseback on both sides of your fuselage. The knight is charging ahead with his lance at the ready.”

  “So you’re worried it’s putting even more of a bull’s eye on my plane than the Triple One already does?”

  “Initially I felt that. Then I got Mickey and his crew to paint the figure on all the squadron’s aircraft. Like Rickenbacker’s 94th outfit has that hat in the ring symbol.” Jackson stopped pacing and stared at him. “This is my thinking. If the Huns get you, the squadron lives on and the spirit in which you fought for America lives on. You may kill the man, but you can’t kill a squadron. Does that sound rough?”

  Jude turned the empty coffee cup over and over in his hand. “If it’s God’s will I go down, I go down. But it would be nice if some of the boys really did carry on in—the same spirit—and took Germans out of the sky by putting them in prison camps—and not in their graves.”

  “That’s up to them. They’re not Amish.”

  Jude smiled. “No, sir. Not yet.”

  Jackson barked his laugh. “You never give up, do you, Whetstone? I shouldn’t like you, but I do.” He came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “You watch your back, young man. I’d like to invite you to a roundup at my ranch in Cochise, Arizona, after the war. It would please me if you were around to honor the invitation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jackson extended his hand and Jude shook it.

  “Now let’s go meet with those pesky reporters,” Jackson growled, opening the door. “We must get our propaganda value out of you before someone signs an armistice and this show is all over.”

  Lack of sleep and the questions from the press corps weighed Jude down, but after lunch, Lucille and the rest of the squadron’s SPADs, all sporting the galloping knight with the lance on their fuselages, took to the sharp autumn air. The bite of the cold at twenty-two thousand feet brought him back to life. Zed forced a Fokker D.VII to crash-land by a British trench, where the pilot was quickly scooped up at gunpoint, but that was it for the sortie, and they returned to an early supper and a celebration meal the cooks had planned for Schleiermacher’s capture and Jude making ace.

  The next day was dark and heavy with rain, and no one flew. Jude spent a good part of it helping Tex and Billy write letters home to their sweethearts.

  “Why do you think I’m some sort of expert on this?” he asked them.

  “You’ve had a gal forever,” Tex replied. “And your batman says you mail a letter almost every week. So you must know something.”

  “What I say to my—gal—and you say to yours, they’re two completely different matters.”

  “Come on, Captain,” Billy prodded as the three of them sat in the empty dining room together. “Just a few ideas. Just a few golden opening lines.”

  Jude sat thinking as the rain banged against the windows.

  “All right,” he finally said. “Have you talked about moonlight? And starlight?”

  “What?” Tex exclaimed. “In the sky?”

  “In—her hair, her eyes. On her skin. Have you mentioned whether the color in her eyes is like…a sunset, or dawn, or the sea? What about her voice? Does it remind you of a creek—whispering—as it runs past a grove of cottonwoods near some of you
r Texas hills? Billy, do her words make you think of, uh, soft summer breezes and…the way butterflies move from flower to flower?”

  Both of the men gaped at Jude, then began scribbling ideas down on paper.

  “Thanks a lot, sir,” Tex said as he wrote. “You sure are cookin’ with gas.”

  The next day was full of sun. Jude held Kitty up to the window and turned the model just like a plane flying across the sky. Then he prayed, read his Bible, and dashed off a note to Lyyndaya.

  I guess you will read about me in the papers, or someone will tell you, or someone will tell Bishop Zook and he will tell you. I have no idea what our people will think about my bringing in the Blue 9 instead of shooting him down. I’m sure nothing I do will warm their hearts while I’m a military man. Well, you and God are my inspiration. I had no intention of becoming a hero. I just wanted to fight a war and end a war without taking anyone’s life. I pray every day I will be able to stick to that. Now that Schleiermacher is out of the picture I hope it will be easier to do.

  You know, I really do love you. Whenever you get this, whenever you read this, please take it to heart as one of the truest things I have ever said. You mean the world to me. Now I am heading into the sky and wish you were in that crazy small cockpit with me. Christ bless you forever, Lyyndy.

  He placed the note in an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and gave it to his batman. “Spencer, see if you can get this out today.”

  The young man grinned. “I’ll do the best I can, sir. After me and the boys have had a chance to read it first, of course.”

  Jude laughed and punched him on the arm. “Here’s a tip—Billy’s and Tex’s letters are juicier.”

  At breakfast it was Flapjack who stood up and read from the Bible—the first time in his life he had done so, he admitted in a rare moment of self-disclosure. A verse had caught his eye when he had been leafing through the tome the evening before. He had one hand in his pocket, the other holding the page, and was slouching a little at the podium—nevertheless his voice was strong and steady and even dramatic.