Chapter Thirteen

Trudging through the wilderness in a part of Germany she’d never visited, Ellenor decided she would personally—by herself, if necessary—end the Great War. She’d do it like this: One, wash her face and apply fresh cosmetics. Two, drive to Kaiser Wilhelm’s imperial palace in Berlin. Three, give him a good American kick in the shin and tell him to stop ruining everything.

And what would old King Willy tell her as he rubbed his lower leg? I didn’t ruin everything, Fräulein. You’re quite adept at that yourself.

She walked beside Alec, two hours after dawn. They crossed a heath of mostly open land, dotted with copses of stout evergreens and the occasional elaborate elm. Nothing here was spoiled. Half a mile back they’d come upon a mostly buried caisson stamped with a fading Iron Cross, but otherwise they had seen no evidence that the Fatherland was at war with enemies on two fronts. They found an array of flat stones that allowed them to cross a stream so clear that every glossy pebble was visible under the water.

We gave you employment and a surrogate family, Wilhelm reminded her.

It was true. Despite the war that the Kaiser had declared from his balcony three years ago, Ellenor had constructed a fine and rewarding life, even while men were shredded not far away at Verdun. The French town of Fleury changed hands sixteen times over the course of the protracted battle, and each time, thousands died either to seize it or hold fast to it. That was the definition of futility. And all the while, Ellenor was making fast friends with Germans like Josef and Dagmar. She ate dinner with them almost every evening. They were her family. They liked to laugh. Now she would likely never see them again.

“Care to share your thoughts?” Alec asked. They’d walked silently for the last several minutes, leaving tracks behind that would be gone by noon.

“Sometimes I find it hard to recall what I was doing before my life here in Europe,” she said. “It wasn’t so long ago. Is that strange?”

“Hardly. I don’t think I even existed before the RFC found me.”

“What did you do? Before the war, I mean.”

“As little as possible. I studied, but not much. I played cricket, but not well.”

“That’s what I mean. The details seem very far away now.”

We gave you Father, Wilhelm said, and you stabbed a knife in his heart.

Ellenor pushed the voice away. It was her own.

Alec walked with his hands in the pockets of his flannel pants. “It’s enough to make one wonder what the days will hold after the fighting has stopped.”

“Have you thought about what you’ll do?”

“Fly on, I imagine.”

“Fly to where?”

“Oh, I don’t know. They say there’s a future for aircraft in delivering the post.”

“You’ll carry mail in an airplane?”

“Sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? I suppose I’ll just have to take up beekeeping.”

“You’ll need a lot more lessons.”

“Fortunately, I happen to be on good terms with an expert.”

“Are we on good terms?”

“Well…you haven’t shot me today.”

“I seem to have left my rifle behind with everything else.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

She permitted herself a smile, though not one she honestly felt. She and Alec took the long way around a tangle of wild privet, and houses became visible down the slope, plainly painted homes and fences of stacked stone. Ellenor realized how the two of them must look, a peaceful couple strolling in the midmorning sun, dressed somewhat strangely and both in need of a bath. They were not so out of place. War had created many misfits and outcasts, and it was not uncommon to see the occasional disheveled, haunted-eyed straggler passing through. They spoke in riddles and seldom stayed for long.

“You’ll have to do the talking,” Alec said.

“I assumed as much. Do we have a story?”

“We’re fleeing the Front. We had a farm. French artillery drove us out. Our lorry broke down last night, and we’ve been walking ever since.”

“And if they ask our names?”

“Make something up.”

“And if they ask why you’re not speaking?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Tell them I’ve been shell-shocked or something.”

“That’s your best explanation? You don’t speak because your brain is addled? We should forget this and turn around. I’ll help you start the plane so you can go and find your sister. I’ll be fine.”

“Liar. Besides, I’m responsible for your being here. It’s my duty to see this through.”

“So I’m your duty now?”

“Please, I’m trying. I’ll work it out eventually—soon. I’ll find the answer. In the meantime, we could use a bite to eat, and we’ll see about that coat. I’m just going to keep my mouth shut and hope for hospitality.”

Ellenor hoped for a lot more than that. She hoped she’d wake up and find this was all a dream. She hoped for a way to return to her little room in the manor house, with its brocade drapes and white damask bunting hanging from the bed posts. None of that was possible anymore, but at least she was wearing a decent pair of boots.

They neared the village, with its slate roofs and moss-covered wells. When the first hay farmer looked up from his work and noticed them approaching, Ellenor waved with an enthusiasm she didn’t feel and tried to think of a fabricated name.

****

At that same moment, in a barn that had been converted into a hangar, Gustov Voss scraped dried blood from the back of a truck.

“She brought him here in this?”

“She did,” Josef confirmed. “When she called me over, I thought it was to help her unload her hive boxes, but instead…”

“Instead it was a British officer.”

“I believe that is correct, sir. I mean, Gustov.”

The blade of Gustov’s knife, made of Damascus steel, was so well-polished that he saw little fragments of his reflection in it when he observed the flaking circle of blood.

“What other injuries did he receive in the crash?”

“Nothing major, from what I understand. But, uh…that blood wasn’t from the crash.”

Gustov looked over at him, waiting.

“He was bleeding from the hand because Little Fox shot him.”

“Little Fox?”

“I mean Ellenor. That’s what I call her.”

“She shot the Englander?”

“In the hand, yes.”

“And then she brought him back here to field-dress the wound she inflicted?”

“I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.”

Gustov laughed in spite of himself. “Oh, I’m starting to believe that anything is possible when Ellenor Jantz is involved.” He darkened when he recalled that he’d not yet filed his report of the incident. Perhaps he could delay it a bit longer. “I ask you again, just to be sure—you have no idea where they’ve gone?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was going to leave with him.”

“I’m told she left all of her possessions behind.”

“And her bees.”

“Yes. Her beloved bees.” Gustov tapped the tip of the knife against his knuckle as he considered it. “They took the plane eastward, but I assumed the pilot would soon change course and head west, in the direction of the Front. That’s where the action is. That’s where he would likely go. So my men scoured the sky to the west, not returning until their fuel tanks demanded it. And they saw nothing, heard nothing. This makes me think that the Englander continued east after taking off, which makes little sense. What does he expect to do with a single aircraft in the heart of Germany? At most, he might blow up a locomotive or a bridge…and what does that possibly accomplish that’s worth the trouble of recruiting a partner and orchestrating the theft of a plane?”

Josef, obviously well out of his element, only shrugged.

“I am missing some vital piece of intelligence.” Indeed, it was as if he were working from a script with several important pages removed. “What am I overlooking?”

“I wish I could help you.”

“I’m sure you do,” Gustov said distractedly. He walked slowly to the barn’s wide doorway and summoned his valet with a wave. They’d assigned to him a young man barely out of rifle training, wide freckles like dew drops on his cheeks. All air officers on both sides of the Front enjoyed the services of such an aide-de-camp. Gustov’s was a naïve Franconian named Eldwin.

“Sir!” Eldwin saluted with unnecessary formality.

“Where is Lieutenant Mier?”

“Overseeing the refueling for the day’s patrol, sir.”

“As soon as he’s finished, please ask him to come see me.”

“Of course, sir.”

“That is all.”

Eldwin raced away, nothing but skinny knees and flying elbows, and damn the bureaucrat who conscripted boys like this for a war that would eventually kill them. At the very least, it would transform them with its tentacles and bile.

Gustov lit a Turkish cigarette and waited.

Mier arrived on a motorbike eight minutes later, dismounted, and came to attention with a salute not quite as rigid as Eldwin’s had been.

Gustov explained the only plan he’d managed to assemble. It was the best he had. It was predicated on a single, possibly pointless hunch: “The Englander was apparently shot down not far from here. We need to find his crashed plane.”