She coasted to a stop, tears streaming down her cheeks. The bicycle’s headlight extinguished as its wheel-driven generator fell still. Her fingers clasped the St. Christopher’s medal dangling from her neck.
“Patron saint of travelers…that sweet boy needs this so much more than me,” Helga whispered to the retreating night.
Fred O’Hara was desperately trying to get his bearings: Fucking trees looming up everywhere! Where’s that goddamn runway? From that last vantage point with Helga, he was sure he could make out the narrow grass runway, but he could not seem to find it now; their wandering in the darkness on foot had disoriented him. He had to keep steering around bunkers of trees; his feet worked the differential brakes madly, the little craft pivoting around the braked wheel, its tail swinging about wildly. He knew he did not need much of a takeoff roll to get airborne in this ungainly-looking but light machine. But he could not seem to find that all-important patch of unobstructed turf. Will I even recognize it, he wondered, if and when we get there?
Light beams—sweeping up and down as if held in the hands of running German men—began to parallel the little airplane’s path; at first just a few lights, then many. Surely, German bullets could not be far behind.
“They’re chasing us, Freddy!” DiNapoli yelled from the back seat.
A dimly-lit valley appeared—like a soft, gray ribbon—between the dark, mountainous tree lines. The runway! This must be it! O’Hara swung the plane around once more and gunned the throttle. The little plane accelerated eagerly. They would be airborne in no time…
Then the engine coughed.
“Oh shit…No!” DiNapoli screamed from the back seat.
O’Hara’s frantic ministrations to the engine controls had no effect. Coughing and surging alternated for a few seconds, until the engine fell silent. The stolen airplane rolled to a stop.
In seconds, a dozen or more men stood alongside the plane, shouting in German. Some had weapons at the ready.
The exhilaration of the escape attempt was the only thing that had flown away. Fred O’Hara shook his head sadly and said, “I think the game’s over, Louie.”
A German in coveralls—a mechanic—spoke in halting English. “Thank you for draining the fuel for us, kamerad...we were almost finished doing that!”
Chapter Sixteen
A very agitated David Linker paced the day room floor, barely able to contain himself. Every time he reached a wall, he punched it, then turned about and stomped off in the opposite direction, like some pugilistic wind-up toy. The dull thud of his fist against the wall sounded like it should be very painful, but Linker was not deterred. Each time David spun around, his G.I. dog tags and Star of David, which shared the same neck chain, swung outside his unbuttoned shirt. Joe Gelardi looked on in dismay, his head following Linker’s traversing of the room as if at a tennis match—he had yet to make sense of Linker’s ranting. Tony Moscone sat mutely in a corner, seemingly oblivious to the commotion.
Linker finally came to a stop in the middle of the room and shouted, “I’m telling you, Lieutenant…that bastard Pilcher is running around with a Kraut! I saw him! Like they were asshole buddies…laughing, punching each other in the arm like it’s all some big fucking joke. Touching each other like a couple of queers. He’s worse than a deserter… he’s a goddamn traitor!”
“How did you know he was German, David?” Gelardi asked.
“I know a German accent when I hear one, Lieutenant! All my relatives speak English like that. And he took out a cigarette case with a big fucking swastika on it!”
“Hmm…I see.” Joe Gelardi had no idea what to say next.
“So are we going to turn him in?” Linker pressed.
“And who would we turn him in to, David?”
“I don’t know…the police?”
“I’m not sure they’d really care, David. They’re not taking sides, remember?”
“We’ve got to do something, Lieutenant! He’s a fucking traitor!”
“Okay, David…okay. Just calm down.” Joe pondered for a moment, then continued, “I’ll take this up with Mrs. MacLeish. She’ll do something. The Swedes won’t tolerate fraternization like that.”
Linker tossed Gelardi’s proposed action over in his mind for a moment. It was not the instant firing squad he had envisioned—but it was at least a start. Anything to get back at that pathetic coward Pilcher. But before anyone could say another word, Ed Morris burst into the day room, a huge smile on his face, waving a piece of paper in his hand.
“I’m packing my gear, you guys,” Morris said. “Just got the word I’m going up to Stockholm to do maintenance on our planes. Gonna be livin’ in a fancy hotel and everything! You sure you don’t want to volunteer, too, David?”
“Nah…somebody has to take care of Tony.”
“Okay, suit yourself. It sure seems better than rotting in this burg, though. I tell you…that Mrs. MacLeish said she’d take care of it…and she did. She sure is good to her word,” Morris said. He kissed the piece of paper in his hands.
You bet she is, Joe Gelardi thought.
Solemnly, David Linker said, “She’d better be.” Then he got back to the original matter at hand. “And I’m sure that son-of-a-bitch Pilcher saw me watching him, too…and he didn’t even seem to give a shit. Arrogant bastard!”
Ed Morris did not follow Linker’s remark; he was only interested in spreading his good news. “Where the hell is Hughes?” he asked. “I’ve been looking for him all day. It’s not like him to go wandering off, all mopey like he is.”
Tony Moscone let out another of those loud, hooting sounds they all believed was laughter. Then he surprised them all by actually speaking: “Frank Hughes…he went up the ladder.”
Joe Gelardi was first up the ladder to the attic. At the top, he froze, causing the still-ascending David Linker’s head to bang into his feet.
“What the hell, Lieutenant?” Linker blurted.
Joe could not speak. The sight of Frank Hughes’s lifeless body hanging from the noose had sucked every word right out of him.
Ed Morris shouted from farther down the ladder. “C’mon! What’s going on up there?”
With agonizing slowness, Gelardi cleared the ladder and climbed into the attic, allowing Linker the vantage point.
For a moment, David was speechless, too. Then he managed to speak just these words: “That poor, homesick bastard!”
Chapter Seventeen
Pola MacLeish threw the telegram from the American military attaché onto her desk with great disgust. She spun in the swivel chair to stare out the window of her dingy office. She needed the added burden of a suicide like a hole in the head. The note attached to Frank Hughes’s shirt had simply said, in childlike handwriting: I cannot be here anymore.
“Your useless attaché in Stockholm has washed his hands of the whole affair, as usual,” she said to Leonard Pilcher and Joe Gelardi, who sat facing her across the desk. “Typical bureaucratic nonsense. It’s up to me to get Sergeant Hughes buried and notify your government of his grave location. Your general in Stockholm just doesn’t seem to care…I’m surprised I don’t have to notify his next of kin myself.”
Pilcher slouched in his chair, totally disinterested in the matter of Frank Hughes. Staring at the ceiling, he muttered, “Gee, ain’t that too goddamn bad?”
Joe felt his blood begin to boil. He posed an angry question to Pilcher: “Shouldn’t you be writing a letter of condolence and explanation to his folks, Captain? He was under your command.”
“Fuck that. The crazy boy wants to hang himself, that ain’t my problem. Anyway, you and your lady friend here think you’re calling the shots now, so why don’t you write the fucking letter, Joseph? That is what she calls you, right? Joseph? Does she call you that in bed, too?”
Joe and Pola exchanged brief but frantic glances. They shared the same thought, screaming in their heads like a siren: Have we really been found out that easily? By this idiot?
“What the hel
l are you talking about, Pilcher?” Joe demanded, hoping Pilcher might only be bluffing.
“That’s ‘Captain Pilcher’ to you, Lieutenant. I think I know what’s going on between you two. You’ve been seen sneaking out of here, then meeting up later. Tell me, Joseph…is she a good fuck? What language does she scream in when you’re banging her?”
Pola jumped from her chair and desperately wanted to shriek No! Don’t do it! But she was too late—Joe Gelardi had already delivered the punch to the jaw that knocked Pilcher from his chair and sent him to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Joe loomed above the sprawled captain, fists still clenched, saying nothing—but his actions loudly confirming Pilcher’s accusation.
Pola sank back into her chair. Softly, ruefully, she said: “Joseph, I really wish you hadn’t done that.” Her mind reeled for some way to get this cat back into the bag.
Pilcher propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed his bruised and swelling chin. A sardonic smile came to his face as he said, “Looks like Joseph just bought himself a court martial.”
Defiantly, Joe replied, “Is this court martial going to be before or after you get the firing squad for desertion? Or maybe for fraternization with the enemy?”
Pola threw her hands up in exasperation. “Court martial? Do you two gobshites suppose I could get that useless attaché of yours interested in a court martial? Perhaps you should worry about that after you’re all gone from here.”
Ignoring Pola’s remark, Pilcher ranted, “Now what the fuck are you talking about, Gelardi? Nobody’s ever gonna charge me with desertion…you know that. Hell, if I’m a deserter, you’re a deserter.”
Joe stood his ground. “That’s just full of shit, Pilcher, and you know it!”
“And just what the hell do you mean by ‘fraternization,’ Joseph?”
“We know about you and your German buddies, Captain. Pola’s got something to tell you…it had to wait until after she dealt with Hughes…but you’re going on a little trip. Seems you’re getting a little too friendly with some Krauts here in town. Some people might call that treason.”
Pilcher shot a hateful look at Pola MacLeish. “What the hell is he talking about, lady? What trip?”
“I’ll be relocating you shortly, Captain Pilcher, to an internee compound. It seems I’ve found one that can take one more American. It won’t be quite as free and easy as your stay in Malmö has been, I’m afraid. There’ll be guards, wire fences, off-camp activities closely supervised…”
Pilcher swung his hateful glare to Joe. “So which one of my jerk-off crew ratted me out?”
“Gee…wouldn’t you like to know!” Joe replied with a triumphant laugh.
Storming toward the office door, Pilcher said, “It had to be that Jew bastard, Linker. Right? I saw him following me…you can spot that big hook nose of his a mile away.”
While she still had a chance, Pola thought about asking Pilcher one simple question: Who ratted us out? But she decided against it. Instead, as Pilcher stormed out the door to the street, she turned to Joe. In a voice laden with apprehension, she asked, “So tell me, Joseph…just how good a fook am I?”
Chapter Eighteen
The sun had risen but Fred O’Hara and Lou DiNapoli were still firmly on the ground in Germany. The Luftwaffe mechanics holding them captive were actually quite friendly, offering them cigarettes, ersatz coffee, even a small meal of bread and sausage. They seemed very impressed by the Americans’ escape attempt, even if they had been unlucky enough to try it in a plane devoid of fuel. The few mechanics who could speak English plied them with good-natured questions, but the Americans would say little; they were POWs once again. Name, rank, and serial number only.
But O’Hara did offer these words: Can’t blame a guy for trying.
The Germans who could understand him started to laugh heartily. One mechanic, older than the rest, gave O’Hara a good-natured slap on the back. Those who could not understand English decided this must be one hell of a joke on the Americans and decided to laugh, too.
Within the hour, Fred O’Hara and Lou DiNapoli were once again on a truck with a few other unlucky Allied airmen, heading to a Stalag Luft deep within Germany. Thoughts of escape made their obligatory appearance one more time; these periods of transit always provided the best opportunities. The guards, however, were not the motley collection of teenagers and old men they had encountered before. They were fit, hard, and alert, carrying short-barreled automatic weapons quite suitable to close-in work with prisoners. The American flyers did not realize the twin lightning bolts on their captors’ collar insignia signified they were Waffen SS until they arrived at the prison camp. A sign—in English and German—at the heavily fortified gate made that uncomfortable fact quite clear.
As they were being hustled off the truck, a sad-eyed Louie DiNapoli turned to Fred O’Hara and said, “Anything for you, brother…always.”
O’Hara replied. “Me, too, buddy. Take that to the bank.”
The sound of a submachine gun being cocked silenced any further conversation.
Chapter Nineteen
Pola rose from the bed, careful not to wake Joe Gelardi. She shivered; the borrowed apartment was quite cold in this early morning hour. She pulled a robe over her naked flesh and stumbled toward the tiny kitchen to put up the kettle. She cursed as she slipped and almost fell on a discarded condom lying on the hardwood floor. It was one of several expended in the night’s lovemaking, detritus of this unwise—yet enthralling—liaison that she believed, just a few short days ago, had surely brought her life to ruin.
Leonard Pilcher somehow knew of their affair. One word from him to her superiors of this forbidden fraternization with internees would get her sacked. The professional disgrace that followed would sink her career. Even if she finished her doctorate, the Ministry could blackball her forever. She would be lucky to get a job teaching primary school. Forget professorships or positions as a government minister. If her husband did ever return from this war, could she have made it any easier for him to divorce her? But a divorce from her distant and disinterested spouse seemed to be the least of her worries.
Frantically, she had plotted—and failed—to have Pilcher shipped to the internee camp even before it was ready to accept him. Some hold-up in the paperwork of a Brit being sent home was keeping the slot into which she so desperately wanted to dump him occupied. She rationalized her actions for the thousandth time: He had this banishment coming, didn’t he? Fraternizing with Germans was so much worse than a lonely woman and man seeking comfort in each other, was it not? Once she shipped him off to the compound, it would be easy to dismiss his accusations as nothing more than attempts at revenge.
Seeking comfort. Pola laughed at that dignified description of their coupling. Shagging like rabbits would be more accurate.
She thought for sure the moment of truth had come when summoned to Professor Steenslund’s office two mornings ago. The professor instructed her to appear with Captain Pilcher and Lieutenant Gelardi. She was barely able to croak the words Yes, Professor into the telephone; her throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. Despite the autumn sun pouring through the window, her world had turned black.
Nothing was said as they drove to the Ministry: Pola, Joe, Pilcher, and their policeman driver. Joe and Pilcher looked surprisingly impassive as they entered the professor’s office. Pola felt awash in perspiration. She hoped her heavy tweed suit jacket would hide the sopping stains to her blouse; she felt sure she was leaving a trail of sweat from beneath her skirt, down her stockings, into her thick-heeled pumps, squishing out to the floor as she walked. This is what attending your own funeral feels like, she told herself.
Professor Steenslund, impatient as always, waved them forward to waiting chairs without looking up. Holding up a file for all to see, he said, “There is a matter of interest to all of you that needs to be cleared up quickly.”
Pola noticed the word REPATRIATION stamped ominously in large letters on the file. So this is how
it ends? I lose my career, my marriage, my Joseph...all at once?
Steenslund continued, “Luckily for you, Captain Pilcher, your reassignment to Smedsbo Internment Camp must be postponed indefinitely. The position is not available.”
Pola felt herself sinking; the Professor’s announcement was news to her. Pilcher’s not really going to be the winner, is he?
Steenslund rattled on. “I must insist, however, that all fraternization with German internees cease immediately. Is that understood?”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you say,” Pilcher said with his usual contempt. None of this mattered to him. He was more amused by how the folds of skin under the bloated professor’s chin hung over his tightly buttoned collar and the knot of his necktie. No matter: this fat Swede was just another irrelevant authority figure to be ignored and swept aside. Pilchers made their own rules.
The Professor ignored the insolence. “With the tragic death of Sergeant Hughes and the reassignment of Sergeant Morris, your numbers have dwindled further, Captain Pilcher. That leaves only yourself, Lieutenant Gelardi, Sergeant Linker, and the unfortunate Sergeant Moscone.” He opened the file, lightly flipping through the sheets of paper within. “Your government has requested that you, Captain Pilcher, be returned to England as soon as possible. A flight is being arranged for you.”
“I’m sorry, Professor, but that ain’t gonna happen,” Pilcher replied. Government, my ass. This is my father’s doing. The old son of a bitch just can’t stop pulling strings, just like always. I’m not even safe from his clutches in this shithole.
The professor seemed confused. “Excuse me, Captain?” he asked, an eyebrow quizzically raised. To his knowledge, nobody had ever balked at repatriation before.
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