On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  “But let me finish. I asked the commandant to let me see his dossier. Emil, he was born in St. Mihiel, during our occupation there in the last war. He’s the same age your little Hans would have been.”

  Emil stopped in the middle of the street and stared at Wilhelm. “The child died—in the fire. With his mother. No, Wilhelm. There’s no possibility this American could be my son. It’s a coincidence—nothing more.”

  “The reports could have been wrong. After all, we had moved out before the fire. He could have been found alive by one of the American soldiers.”

  Emil shook his head. “The past is dead and buried, the same as the child.”

  “The paratrooper was badly beaten—by the guards, for trying to escape.”

  “Wilhelm, it’s no use. I have only one son, Heinrich,” Emil insisted bitterly. “The one who arrested Frau Emma and arranged her death.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, Emil. You have only one son. For the other won’t last long in Stalag XIII-A.”

  “Dräger has him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if he is proved to be my other son, there’s nothing I could do for him.”

  “He goes by the name of Wexford, in case you change your mind.”

  Wilhelm left him hurriedly, saluting with a “Heil Hitler!” for the sake of the driver bringing his car to the curbing. Emil watched the car depart, then slowly walked back to the Reichstag.

  All day, Emil was haunted by the possibility that the son he had abandoned in France, with his mother, Ailly, was still alive.

  Many times he had regretted that day when he was ordered to leave St. Mihiel, with the Americans at his heels. It had come as a surprise, being overrun by a fledging army whose effectiveness had been more or less dismissed in the first war. Now, twenty-five years later, that American army was a force to be reckoned with. Without it, the Führer would have defeated the British long ago.

  A measure of excitement began to fill Emil’s body. His military bearing returned; his shoulders straightened. There would be no harm in just going to see the boy, he decided.

  Emil picked up the telephone and his aide in the outer office answered immediately.

  “Put me through to Colonel Dräger at Stalag XIII-A.”

  An unhappy Dräger sat at his desk and drummed a devil’s tattoo with his fingers. He never liked it when the generals at the Reichstag came to snoop around. It always spelled trouble. But Freiker had at least been courteous enough to announce his arrival, giving Dräger an opportunity to clean up; for, like many of the old-timers from the Wehrmacht, Freiker still believed in the Geneva Convention. They, however, didn’t have to deal with recalcitrant prisoners day after day.

  He had forty-eight hours to turn the camp into a model prison. He would order special food in the mess for the prisoners and get them cleaned and shaven. Dräger frowned. A few of the prisoners would have to be hidden from sight. But that presented no problem.

  “Kurt,” he called to the guard standing on the other side of the door. “Come in here.”

  The guard moved quickly, stood at attention before Dräger, and waited for him to speak.

  “We’re having an inspection in forty-eight hours. I want you to take the three paratroopers who tried to escape and throw them into the Hole, until the inspection is over.”

  “Are they to be punished again?”

  “No. I want no dead men on my hands. But withhold any food or water for the next forty-eight hours.”

  Two days later, when Emil arrived at the camp, a smiling Dräger was ready for him.

  “Herr General, how good to see you,” he exclaimed as von Freiker climbed out of the vehicle and stood to his full height of well over six feel. “I have a hot meal waiting for you—the same hot meal, incidentally, that the prisoners are eating at the moment. I hope you don’t mind having the same fare as the prisoners.”

  Emil’s hooded eyes stared down into Dräger’s as he spoke. “It’s always gratifying to know the prisoners are well fed.”

  “Yes. Well. . . come inside,” Dräger offered, suddenly defensive under von Freiker’s gaze.

  Emil showed no impatience with Dräger. He ate the meal and drank the wine. And when he had finished, Emil, cautious not to mention the Wexford name, said, “I should like to inspect all barracks, Dräger.”

  The colonel, thinking the general would soon tire, began with the best and newest of the huts and left the worst ones for last. Despite the advance warning, many of the huts would not stand the rigid inspection.

  “I don’t know who he is,” one British prisoner whispered, when Emil had gone. “But I’m grateful to him for the hot meal.”

  “How did it taste without all that treacle over it?” a Canadian teased. For the guards had made a practice of sinking their bayonets into each can of food sent from home, and by the time the British received their boxes, sweet syrup had spilled over everything.

  “So that’s what was missing,” the Englishman said, grinning. “I knew the cook forgot to put something in the stew.”

  Far from tiring, Emil went to all barracks and quietly looked over the men as he searched for a young paratrooper as tall as he.

  Dräger became more nervous as the afternoon wore on, and he began to suspect that von Freiker had been sent on a special mission.

  “This is the last hut, Herr General,” Dräger said, relieved that von Freiker had not seemed to notice there were no mattresses in the last two huts.

  “And there are no more prisoners in your care?” Emil asked at the end of the hour.

  “There may be one or two digging a new latrine behind the compound.”

  “Well, let’s go back to your office, Dräger. I’d like to look over their files. The majority are American, I presume?”

  Infuriatingly for Dräger, Emil took his time. Pulling out one file and then another, he seemed no more interested in one man than another. But all the time, Emil had steeled himself to read the file of the paratrooper, Wexford. Coming almost to the end of the file, he saw there was no one by that name. He had seen no man in the barracks or on the grounds who could even halfway have passed as his son. Von Sydow was mistaken. Either that, or Dräger had killed him.

  Finally Emil looked up. “I understand an American paratrooper by the name of Wexford was put under your care recently. Why is his file not with the rest?”

  Dräger’s grip tightened on his holster. Something was afoot. The general knew something that he didn’t. Dräger decided to tell the truth.

  “He may be one of the three who attempted to escape. If so, he is being punished.”

  “How?” Emil demanded.

  “He has been put in the Hole.”

  “In this weather? He will freeze to death, Dräger.”

  “Herr General, may I remind you that he is the enemy—that he attempted to escape, and was caught.”

  “I want to see him. Have one of your guards bring him to me.”

  “He’s not a model prisoner, Herr General. I cannot guarantee—”

  “Have him brought to me regardless, Dräger.”

  The Hole, dug into the side of the earth, was like a mine shaft, pitch black, cold and damp, the ceiling too low for Marsh to stand up straight. But it didn’t matter, for he was weak, as were the other two, from a lack of food.

  The heavy gate began to swing open and Marsh shielded his eyes from the sudden glare of sunlight.

  “Wexford,” the guard shouted. “You are to come with me.”

  “What about the others?”

  “They stay.”

  “Then I stay, too.”

  “Nein, you come with me. It has been ordered.”

  “Go on, Wexford. And when you come back, bring me a steak and a beer,” one man requested, his sense of humor still intact.

  With the prisoner in front of him, the guard walked across the compound to the commandant’s headquarters. And Emil, standing at the window, watched.

  The prisoner towered above the guard. Emil was t
oo far away to see any other characteristics besides the prisoner’s height. Suddenly impatient, he picked up the binoculars from Dräger’s desk and walked back to the window. A few moments later, he returned the binoculars to the desk.

  “He is to be fed, Dräger,” Emil ordered, “and made presentable before I question him.”

  “Yes, Herr General.”

  Forty-five minutes later, a curious Marsh sat in a detention cell. His tongue, swollen earlier from a lack of water, was now almost back to normal. He felt much better.

  “You will stand for General von Freiker,” a voice ordered.

  Marsh obeyed, his stance proud, his blue eyes wary at the approach of the German general.

  “You are Captain Daniel Wexford?”

  “Yes. My serial number is---”

  “That is not necessary, Captain. I have not come to question you on military matters.”

  Both were aware that the only information Marsh would be required to give was name, rank, serial number. Still, Marsh remained wary.

  “Bring me a chair, Private,” Emil ordered,” and then you may wait in the outer room.”

  Kurt, the guard, obeyed. When Emil and Marsh were alone, with iron bars separating them, the general sat and motioned for Marsh to do the same.

  “I have seen your dossier,” Emil began. “And I see from it that you were born at St. Mihiel.”

  Marsh neither confirmed nor denied it.

  “When did you go to America?”

  “My name is Captain Daniel Wexford. My serial number is 264—“

  “Was your mother’s name –Ailly?”

  The name caused Marsh to falter. Staring at the German general, he examined his strong, angular face in a new light. His features had been ravaged by age, but they were similar to his own. As Marsh stared at the older man and saw what he might become in time, so Emil stared at the young paratrooper and remembered what he had been.

  Neither betrayed his thoughts to the other. But the name Ailly had drawn a response against Marsh’s will. The name hung in the silent air, binding father and son together.

  “Is there anything you wish?” Emil finally inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “Name it, and if it’s within my power . . .”

  “Two of my men are still in the Hole. I want them released and given food and water.”

  “I will see to it.”

  Emil stood, reluctant to go, yet afraid to stay. “Good luck, Captain Wexford.”

  “Thank you, Herr General.”

  Marsh was returned to his barracks soon after the general left camp. And the other two men were released from the Hole, as he requested.

  Three days passed. The bruises suffered from the beating began to heal, but there was little food to eat.

  On the morning of the fourth day, a guard came into the officers’ barracks for Marsh. “We go into the forest to gather firewood for the commandant,” he said. “You come.”

  “Now see here, you can’t take him,” a fellow officer protested. “It’s against regulations for an officer to do manual labor.”

  Marsh quieted him. “Maybe I’ll find a rabbit for our supper. We could do with a little meat in our gruel.”

  “You know the regulation about fire—”

  “We’ll worry about that when we have something to put in the pot,” Marsh cautioned.

  He climbed into the truck with the other men. The gates opened and the well-guarded prisoners left the compound for the nearby forest.

  In twos the prisoners worked, gathering twigs and small branches that had fallen to the forest floor. The commandant would be warm during the winter, even if the prisoners were not allowed to build fires for themselves.

  As Marsh bent over for a limb, he felt a rifle prod him in the back. “You are to come with me,” the guard announced in his gruff voice.

  When Marsh was slow to respond, the guard used his rifle butt in a ferocious blow. “At once.”

  Holding his side, Marsh straightened and began to follow the guard. The other men kept their eyes downward while they continued to gather firewood and bundle the sticks together.

  “I’ve had just about enough of your--”

  “Silence.” The guard now prodded Marsh until the two were out of sight of the others. And when they had reached the band of trees on the lower edge of the forest, the guard motioned for Marsh to stop. He pointed to a tall tree in the distance.

  “You will find a rucksack on the far side of the conifer. I will look the other way for five minutes. And in another fifteen, I will return to the truck to sound the alarm and release the dogs.”

  Marsh’s eyes narrowed at the guard. Either someone wanted him shot—or someone had arranged his escape. But which?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Long before the twenty minutes were up, Marsh heard the dogs. And he realized what the guard had done—taken the bribe money and then given the alarm earlier than he had promised. Unless he could outwit the dogs in the next few minutes, he was assured of being captured—a second time.

  Stopping beside a large oak tree in the forest, Marsh retrieved the prison shirt from his rucksack. If only he had a can of pepper. He would sprinkle the shirt liberally, plant it in the bushes, and when the dogs found it and sniffed it, their sense of smell would be hampered temporarily.

  The dogs’ barking was closer, louder, and Marsh knew he had to think of something else in a hurry, or the German shepherds would run him to ground.

  He did the only thing left for him. He swung onto a low branch of the ancient oak and climbed almost to the top. He took the prison shirt and tied it to a high limb, then carefully swung toward the limb of the next tree. If he could keep in the air for awhile, he might be able to escape.

  From his vantage point in the tree, Marsh looked back. He saw the guards with their dogs fast approaching. He gazed frantically in the other direction, at the mountainous stream that curved its way through the wooded terrain. And he knew his only salvation lay in that direction.

  Like the obstacle course at Fort Benning at the beginning of his paratrooper training, Marsh went, hand over hand, edging from one tree to another, without putting his feet on the ground until he reached the last large oak in the woods.

  Around the water’s edge the vegetation changed to smaller trees—trees far too small to accommodate Marsh’s weight. Behind him, the barking of dogs grew into an uproar. They must have discovered his shirt tied high up in the first tree he had climbed.

  With a feeling of impending doom, Marsh jumped toward the green willow next to the water, dangled precipitously as he heard the wood crack, and braced his body for the inevitable fall. Barely missing the bank, he landed with a splash. It was only then that Marsh felt he stood a sporting chance of escape.

  Chapter 41

  At Götterung, high in the hills where the ancestral Schloss of the von Erhard family lay in disrepair, Heinrich von Freiker set up his headquarters for the capture of Gretchen.

  His rage had finally abated, and now he looked forward to the calculating cat-and-mouse game with the young woman. He congratulated himself on the news release concerning Frau Emma’s mock state burial. He had seen that she received far more news coverage than she deserved, but he knew that wherever Gretchen was hiding, the news would reach her. And that was the important thing. Otherwise, his entrapment would take much longer.

  A shell of its splendid ancient self, the Schloss had been stripped of its valuables. No family portraits gazed from the walls; no silver steins sat on the sideboard in the dining hall waiting to be filled for the lord of the manor.

  With the cunning that had helped him survive time after time, Heinrich had taken one wing for himself, trusting to his subordinate to make him comfortable. His military vehicle was hidden in the barn, so there would be no outward sign that the Schloss was inhabited.

  The cold and dampness had made his foot ache more than usual. Heinrich longed for Horst to build a fire, but smoke rising from a chimney
would alert Gretchen that the manor house was occupied and drive her away. So Heinrich withstood the discomfort.

  As Heinrich, draped in an army blanket, sat in the faded wing chair of the master bedroom and shivered despite all attempts at keeping warm, a cold Gretchen, dressed as a young boy, carefully made her way through the woods on horseback.

  She knew every trail, every meandering stream in the vicinity of the Schloss, for, as a child, she had ridden over the land many times with her father, his proud demeanor, his iron-rod posture at odds with the gentleness he exhibited with animals and with his daughter.

  She had been off at school when it happened—the nightmare that never seemed real, her father dragged away and shot when he refused the post offered by Adolph Hitler. She knew that her mother had never forgiven herself for being away in Vienna at the height of the opera season. Frau Emma felt she could have persuaded him to take a less severe stand.

  The childhood memories rose to envelop Gretchen as she came to the apple orchard where trees, ancient and gnarled, spread their limbs in all directions.

  “Vater! Vater!” she said, the hurt returning to her throat.

  The apples were nearly gone. Gretchen, performing the ritual that had bound her spiritually to her father in childhood, got down from the horse and, selecting one apple for the animal and one for herself, stood very still at the edge of the orchard. As she ate the fruit, she relived those earlier days when they had been a family—together. And as she had so many times before, Gretchen, standing in that spot, knew that just over the rise beyond the orchard, she would be able to see the family Schloss—if it were still standing.

  Caution now slowed her, for the open field beyond the orchard gave no hiding place from curious eyes.

  Not far from the Schloss, Marsh Wexford, escaped prisoner of war, sat in a sheltered copse and finished the last of the black bread.

  He was hopelessly lost. The map in his rucksack was of minimal use without a compass. In the distance, snow already covered the mountain peaks. And the late-afternoon wind carried the promise of frost. Marsh stood up. He would have to seek better shelter soon.