Of Another Time and Place

by Brad Schaeffer

  “We’re here,” I announced, lowering Elsa to her feet. She’d amassed a bouquet of leaves and seemed to have put the horrors of the past twenty-four hours out of her mind in a way only children can. “But,” I cautioned them, “we have a little more walking through the woods to do still. We need to avoid the guard stations on the road.”

  The Krupinskis groaned at that. “Harmon,” said an exhausted Leo. “I think I am spent.”

  I trudged over to him and took his hand in mine. “You can do this,” I said with conviction. “Leopold Krupinski did not spend years in an attic and come all this way to give up in sight of his freedom.”

  “I see only more woods.” He sighed.

  Constanze stood up straight. “Come on, you old goat,” she mused to Leo. “You’re not rid of me yet.”

  With that he nodded and found the strength to trudge on.

  It was just a little farther until we got to the improvised hangars, which were just tents among the clearings hacked into the woods. The distance was actually less than I’d thought. It seemed that within a half hour we were crouched in defilade in the shrubs at the border of the woods gazing at the new sylvan home of JG 32. It was difficult in the morning mist to make out the shapes of the fighters scattered and camouflaged among the poplar trees. Birds twittered but not another living creature made its presence known.

  At the far end of a clearing stood a neat row of camouflaged tents, which now served as the crude quarters and mess for the skeleton crew. There were maybe a dozen serviceable aircraft that I could make out through the haze. The Mustangs had gotten the rest the day I left. That day seemed more like an eon than a mere fortnight ago. My life I once had known was already receding into the distant past. I tried to put the faces of my parents and Paul out of my mind for now. I would have time to mourn later. Right now I had other matters to contend with.

  It didn’t look good for us. Here we were, ready to make a dash for a plane that could take us away, yet I saw nothing but single-seat fighters. My roll of the dice had come up craps, and I honestly wasn’t sure what to do next. I felt my spirits sinking into despair at the thought of traveling on foot to France with my weakened band. That was when I heard the faint echo of idle chatter from across the field. I crouched down low as I observed Sergeant Ohler and one of his corporal assistants lazily walking across my field of vision until they stopped at what looked like a very large haystack. They began to pull down shocks of straw, and to my astonishment a glass nose cone and then twin propellers with bright red cowlings revealed themselves. More branches and shrubs were removed, and what had once looked like a garage-sized pile of straw was, in fact, a forest-green Heinkel He 111 medium bomber.

  The battered old gas truck then emerged from the mist, and two more men stepped out and hooked the hose to the plane’s fueling gasket. I turned behind me and signaled with my finger to my lips for everyone to be silent. If they fueled the plane up quickly, we could make a dash for it. It was our only chance. It had come down to this one window of opportunity. And as the base was now stirring, it was a long shot, but I was in desperate straits.

  In less than ten minutes the little gray truck pulled away and disappeared in the haze towards the faint outlines of tents down at the far end of the field where the woods began again. I was glad to see that the corporal drove off with them, leaving no one but the bullet-headed Ohler, who was too busy tinkering with one of the landing gear struts to notice anything else around him.

  “Amelia,” I whispered to her. She crawled up to me. I cringed as twigs snapped beneath her knees, but at least her wool dress muffled the sound. “You all follow after me when I get to the plane.”

  “Be careful,” she begged.

  “I’ve lived this long, haven’t I?” I winked. She took my hand and squeezed it tightly, and I kissed her quickly for luck. Then I rose to my feet and emerged from the woods and out of the fog like a lost soul.

  57

  I could hear Kurt Ohler humming contently to himself as he did what he enjoyed most: working on machines. His tools made metallic pings as he adjusted a strut here, tightened a screw there. He was standing underneath the right wing of the large Heinkel, which was the versatile mainstay of the Luftwaffe level bombing fleet. His thick, grease-stained forearms were buried in the bowels of one of the engines doing some last-minute pre-flight maintenance when I approached him cautiously.

  “Is this machine ready to fly?” I asked in a hushed voice.

  At first he didn’t deviate from his task and only responded: “I should hope so or else I’m sending the supply officers up to their doom.” He closed the panel that gave access to the in-line engine and locked it. He turned around. “She’s flying to Frankfurt in about two—” At first his face was stone. But then the bushy mustache rose on his cheeks and his yellow teeth showed through. “Captain Becker!” he exclaimed. “By God it’s good to see you, sir! We all thought you’d left us.”

  I raised my hand and pointed the Luger at his stomach, and he squinted in confusion.

  “I have left you, Kurt.” I made a flipping motion to the plane’s open hatch with the gun barrel. “Get in.”

  His expression changed to alarm. “Sir, please, I don’t know what this is about.”

  “There’s no time to explain. Just get in the plane. Now!”

  He didn’t say another word and obediently scaled the extended ladder into the side ventral gunner ‘bath tub’ position that led into fuselage. I followed him up, keeping the gun trained on him. Once inside the narrow interior, I ushered him through the empty bomb bay and into the cockpit, which was enclosed by the distinctive birdcage glass and strut nose of the aircraft. We could see through the windscreen Amelia hurriedly escorting the rest of my charges along the grassy runway until they disappeared below us. Then they popped up one by one into the plane’s belly and found places to sit in the cramped fuselage. Amelia crouched behind us in the cockpit, holding on to the pilot’s seat for support. Jakob shoved past Kurt, got on his hands and knees, and crawled onto the bombardier platform, which was in front and to the right of the pilot seat. A twenty-millimeter cannon jutted out of the tip of the nose, which was offset to the right so when manning the gun for defense or strafing, the bombardier wouldn’t obstruct the pilot’s field of vision. On the other side of the bomb bay, in the center of the aircraft, Krup sat in the right waist gunner’s seat and Constanze the left, with Elsa on her knees. Ohler looked back over his shoulder at them with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.

  “Who the hell are they?” he asked.

  “Shut up, Kurt,” I snapped. I tapped Jakob on the shoulder and handed the gun to him. “If this man makes a move, shoot him.”

  Jakob took the gun hesitantly but, realizing that he needed to make a good show of it, sat up on the platform with his knees tucked in and firmly grasped the weapon. He placed his finger on the trigger, aiming it straight at Ohler’s face. (I didn’t bother to tell anyone I’d left the safety on. I had no intention of hurting my good crew chief, either on purpose or by an accidental discharge.)

  I situated myself in the pilot’s seat and ran my fingers over the many dials above my head with one hand while taking the wheel in the other. “I’ve never flown anything so large,” I muttered mostly to myself. “Okay, let’s just go through this by the numbers, Harmon.”

  I did an accelerated pre-flight check as best I could remember and then strapped myself in. Ohler was warily looking around for something to hang on to, as there was no co-pilot seat. “Not you, Kurt,” I said. “Once we hit the runway you can go.” He gave me a suspicious look and then pointed at Jake and the gun aimed at his forehead.

  “Will you please tell this…boy to point the gun away?”

  I ignored him. It was time to go.

  “Hang on, everybody. This won’t be smooth,” I warned. I primed both engines and then depressed the starters, first the right and then the left
engine. There was a protesting whine as the propellers reluctantly began to rotate and then the submissive coughing as the engines turned over and the real power with their cylinders took hold. The grass and hay and leaves behind the wings began to whip around violently in the prop wash, as I lowered the flaps and very gently eased the throttle to move us out of the wooded cove and onto the open field of the runway.

  “Is everyone either strapped in or holding on to something?” I shouted back to my frightened passengers, who’d never flown before in their lives. The Krupinskis nodded unconvincingly from the gunners’ stations. Only Jakob seemed to be relishing the moment. That he was actually aiming a gun at a Nazi soldier as opposed to the other way around was especially gratifying to him.

  I taxied out to the far end of the field opposite the rows of tents in the distance. The glass nose offered me excellent visibility, which I needed as I sloppily lined up for takeoff, trying to figure out the best angle to run down what was really just a pasture. I did one last check, revving the engines to 80 percent throttle while applying the brakes to check the manifold pressure. Everything checked out. And we were topped off with fuel. This might just work, I thought.

  One last act remained. “Okay, Sergeant,” I shouted over the din. “This is the end.”

  Ohler’s eyes widened in disbelief and fear. “You’re going to kill me, sir?”

  I frowned at him. “Of course not! You’ve been a fine crew chief. I’ve always liked you, Kurt. But unless you wish to accompany me to England as a POW, I suggest you get out of this bird now.”

  “Sir,” he protested. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Jakob was less patient with this man who was just the uniform of an oppressor to him. He stood up and grabbed Ohler by the collar (even though Kurt outweighed him by at least eighty pounds).

  “Get out, you Nazi scum!” he shouted.

  Kurt was shocked to hear such a taunt, and whipped his head to find the boy aiming the pistol straight at his face. At this point I was wondering whether leaving the safety on was a good idea. But I saw Ohler’s eyes travel down Jake’s sleeve to spot a tattoo I’d never noticed before on his pale forearm. It was a Star of David. Ohler resigned himself at that point to getting out before he got shot. With one last glance to me and then a disapproving scowl, he sidled his way in between the two bomb compartments and leapt out of the ventral hatchway that was still dangling open. He fell with a roll onto the grass as the plane passed above him. He stood up and brushed himself off to watch the Heinkel pick up speed and race down the field. As Jakob pulled up the hatch and then made his way back to the platform to my right, I gently increased power until I could feel the plane rise off the uneven airfield. Then I eased back on the yoke, and after bouncing a few times on the rough surface, the landing gear cleared the ground and we were airborne.

  Through the nose cone I could see men emerging from tents in front of us as we passed overhead, buzzing the field. Very soon we were clear of the base and over the trees. I maintained our course and airspeed in order to gain altitude. Having flown only single-engine aircraft since 1940, it took some time to get used to the slower and more labored responses of the bomber’s flight characteristics. It felt like climbing to cruising altitude would take all day.

  Jakob marveled at his first views of the world from the air. To our right, barely visible in a sea of ground fog illuminated by the morning glare, was the little hamlet of Andeville. Beyond it the crumpled remnants of Château LeClaire and my old aerodrome. “It’s beautiful,” exclaimed my teenaged passenger.

  Amelia was in the seat directly behind us and was leaning forward to also take in the splendid scenery. The placid green of the fields laid out before us and the serene sensation of smooth flight gave a false sense of security to my passengers that was underscored by Amelia’s hopeful inquiry: “Are we safe now?”

  I answered her while my eyes darted back and forth from the instrument panel to the sky before me. “Not by a long shot. Even if no one comes after us from my base, we’re flying a bomber with Luftwaffe markings into Allied airspace over a combat zone. They’re bound to have strong patrols out.”

  I reached for the radio headset and snapped it over my ears. Then I began fidgeting with the dials.

  “What are you doing?” asked Jakob more from curiosity than anything.

  “I need to get on to an enemy frequency. I need to announce to the Allies who we are and what our intentions are so they don’t shoot us down. There’s only one problem,” I cautioned.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The Luftwaffe will pick us up too.”

  “Do you think they’ll bother to come after us?”

  “I don’t know, Jake.” I lied. I knew the answer. Because I knew Major Hans Seebeck.

  Seebeck at that moment was standing half-dressed outside his tent furiously waving his arms as he berated poor Sergeant Ohler for letting us escape. The major paced back and forth on the wet grass while Ohler stood stiffly at attention. “But, Herr Major,” my former crew chief protested. “He had a gun on me.”

  “Who?” the irate major demanded. “Becker?”

  “Well no, sir,” replied Ohler sheepishly. “A boy.”

  Seebeck shook his head. “A boy? And who were these people again?”

  “I don’t know, Herr Major. A woman, an older couple, and what must have been their two children. I believe the family at least were Jews.”

  “And why is that?” asked Seebeck.

  “The boy had a tattoo of their star on his arm.”

  Seebeck stared at the clear sky, his frustration growing. How could he be having this conversation? Whatever had happened to that Keitel fellow in Stauffenberg?

  Exasperated, Seebeck asked one last question. “Do you have the slightest idea where they may be heading?”

  Ohler thought about it a second. “The captain spoke of England.”

  Seebeck shook his head. “England?”

  “I can’t be sure, Herr Major. Like I said, I had a gun to my head. But he said something about England and being a POW.”

  Seebeck pondered the meaning of that. “Traitorous coward.”

  The major scanned the base and searched through a band of pilots emerging from their tents to find out who was the inconsiderate sot who’d rudely awakened them so early in the morning. Among the men was a quieter-than-usual First Lieutenant Mueller. Seebeck called to him.

  Mueller immediately obeyed. “Herr Major,” he said with a crisp salute.

  “Did you carry out my orders in Stauffenberg?”

  “I did, Herr Major,” said Mueller, staring straight ahead.

  Seebeck tried to detect any deceit in the flier’s eyes, but there was none. The major had no idea what series of events had led to this morning. He would have to take it up with Keitel at another time, but right now needed to get to the bottom of all this.

  “First Lieutenant, are you aware that it was Captain Becker who flew off with my plane just now?”

  Mueller looked at him, visibly surprised while trying to maintain his soldierly manner. “No, Herr Major, I most certainly am not.”

  Seebeck again wanted to doubt the man’s veracity, but it was clear that Becker’s wingman was as surprised as anyone, if not more so.

  “He was with a woman. And a family of Jews.” He stepped up closer to Mueller. “You know this man better than anyone here. Do you have any idea who they might be?”

  Mueller thought for a second and then nodded. “I do, Herr Major,” my wingman answered. “Or at least I can offer an educated guess.”

  “Well?”

  “The girl I met yesterday. Her name is Amelia Engel. His sweetheart.”

  Seebeck curled his brow. “His lover? Huh. But what of the family?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Perhaps his piano instructor and his family. He’s the only older man about whom t
he captain speaks with any affection.” Then Mueller’s expression changed, like someone solving a riddle. “Well I know four Germans who are not going to die.” My words bounced around in his head. “I wasn’t aware they were Jews. But now I understand.”

  “What do you understand?” sneered Keitel.

  Mueller cracked a knowing smile. “He’s saving their lives, sir.”

  Seebeck was taken aback. His best pilot was risking his life to save a pack of Jews? Inconceivable. Yet it was the only logical explanation for the strange events unfolding.

  “So, the man who wishes to be above it all has suddenly become Moses,” he said. He turned to Ohler. “Very well, Sergeant. Prepare Becker’s and Mueller’s planes for takeoff, immediately.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Major.” Ohler saluted and trotted off to fuel up the two Focke-Wulf 190s. “And arm them as well,” he added. Ohler paused and then proceeded to go about his task, calling to several ground crewmen to assist him.

  “You’re coming with me, Mueller.”

  “Sir?” Mueller blinked in surprise. “Coming with you where?”

  Seebeck gazed up at the clear blue sky towards the west. “Up there,” he said.

  Mueller was more than a little hesitant about flying with Seebeck on his wing. He was, in fact, downright terrified. With a sky filled with Allied fighters, it seemed to him that going on a mission with the cycloptic Seebeck, even if it was to shoot down a lone bomber, was suicide.

  “Herr Major, with all due respect,” said Mueller diplomatically, “are you up for flying? It’s been a while. And the Allies will have their fighter umbrella up.”

  Seebeck threw him a look of contempt. “I’m still a fighter pilot. Be ready to take off in ten minutes. He’ll not get away from me.”

  Mueller was unconvinced. And the thought of having to go after his old friend, even if he was deserting and harboring Jews, was something he was having a hard time reconciling with his sense of duty. After all, had he not swallowed hard on his standards already and done as the major ordered by reporting his trusted wingman to the SS? Wasn’t that enough to ask of him? But a soldier’s lot was to do more than expected at all times. It was the nature of excellence. Still, he made one last attempt to stay neutral.