Chapter Twenty

Gustov woke with a woman on his chest.

In all the ways a man could wake up in the morning, there were perhaps only three that mattered. One: in jail. Two: in a hospital bed. Three: in a lover’s arms. The other variations, though many were important, did not indicate such an interesting history.

He slid from beneath her. She purred and slipped back into sleep.

Last night and into the early hours of the black Metz morning, he’d visited five—no, six—taverns along Avenue Foch. No one had seen the Englander, nor any foreigners at all, for that matter. These were Messines, a people in love with life and, in an existential way, in love with war. That conflict on the Hindenburg Line not so far away reminded them that they were brothers. Every hour they were free was a gift they longed to share with the men at the Front, soldiers who got so sick with gangrene that their body parts were amputated by field surgeons with wagons for operating rooms. The bar patrons had adored Gustov because he embodied the patriotism they felt only when their country was fighting someone else. They had loved him for his handsome face and for his acumen at cards. They had plied him with drink. When they learned he was an airman, they’d practically fallen to pieces in excitement. None had ever flown in an airplane before. He had borne their endless questions with the patience only a hunter knows.

He swung his feet from the boardinghouse bed.

Shortly before sunrise, he’d found his way here, mostly drunk. But there was not a pilot in this war who was a stranger to drinking until sunrise and then finding sobriety in the clouds on a dawn patrol. Now, only a few hours later, Gustov would have to strap on his holster and continue his investigation. He’d promised Mier and the men that he’d return to Father’s farm by late afternoon.

He stood, feeling the warmth spread through his abdominals and lower back, and walked naked to where a stack of folded towels waited near the door. He wrapped his lower body, picked up his travel kit, and left the room in search of coffee, a sink in which to shave, and a toilet, in whichever order they happened to present themselves.

When he returned to his room, dressed and normalized by breakfast, the woman was gone. He tidied the area, paid his bill, and fired himself like an arrow into the neighborhood outside, once again consumed with his mission. Surely someone on this street had seen the Englander. Someone had a story to tell.

Gustov started with a bootblack on the corner, asking his one question while his boots were being buffed. He was prepared to ask it as many times as necessary. He was a man of uncluttered intent. He had not told the woman his name nor asked for hers in return.

****

Alec and Ellenor crept back into Klaus Weller’s house while the world was still dark enough to conceal their passage. They stole up the stairs, whispered a goodnight even though the sun would rise in less than an hour, and disappeared into their respective rooms.

Alec had no intention of sleeping.

He threw himself into the creaking little bed, put his arms behind his head, and gazed up at the slanted ceiling.

He lay there for less than a minute before realizing he needed to speak with Ellenor. The two of them had arranged to meet again with Sarah and her friends at eleven in the morning, only a few hours from now. Roby and Jules represented the entire membership of Sarah’s army of revolutionaries. The German Polizei had arrested or killed enough malcontents that everyone but those three quixotic fools had gone to ground. And unless he and Ellenor intervened, the Franc-tireurs of Metz were going to meet their ruin tomorrow in the dark hours before dawn, and the Spads and Breguet 14s and all the men inside them would leave the aerodrome and never return.

Alec got up, departed his room, went to Ellenor’s door, and promptly lost his nerve.

Shit. He’d killed men ten thousand feet above the face of the earth. He’d been the target of hundreds of bullets. And yet his knuckles were frozen in space, two inches from her door.

“Sally forth, old boy.” With that, he knocked.

She opened the door almost immediately She’d brushed her long hair.

He whispered, “May I come in?”

She stepped aside without a word. Alec entered.

She’d not yet turned out the oil lamp beside the bed. Like him, she was not inclined to sleep, not when the bombing raid was scheduled for approximately twenty-four hours from now.

“I’d ask you to sit down, but…” She indicated the lack of chairs between the bed and the cedar chest.

“No worries.” Alec dropped to the floor and leaned against the bed as if it were the back of a chair. He patted the space beside him.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Ellenor lowered herself down to her designated spot.

“Hell of a night, eh?” he said.

“It’s one surprise after the next. How’s your hand?”

He held it up and unwrapped the bandage. The wound was red and puckered but no longer throbbed. “At least you didn’t shoot any fingers off.”

“I panicked. I thought you were going to hurt me.”

“I’m sure it will leave a fascinating scar.” He put his hand down. “Do you like her?”

“Sarah? I hardly know her.”

“Apparently I don’t really know her, either. All this free-shooter business…” He wasn’t even sure what to say about it.

“Well, I suppose the question of how to fly your sister to France has been answered. She doesn’t intend to go at all. She wants to stay and fight.”

“Fight and get killed, yes, and as much as I’d love to boast of a martyr in the family, I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Unless we plan on kidnapping her, our only other option is to stay and help.”

“Then we’ll stay and help.”

“But you heard what Roby said. All those big guns are placed around the city. How bad is that, exactly? You know far better than I do…can the French planes make it through all that?”

“They’ll be slaughtered. I’ve experienced anti-aircraft fire in the worst possible way. We call it ‘ack-ack’ or ‘Archie.’ The shells are set to some kind of mechanical timer so they explode at a predetermined moment after launching. And when they do, they spew out a mess of fire and little steel fragments. Flying through ack-ack is like…um…”

“Like moving through a cloud of angry bees?”

He smiled. “Quite.”

“So…is there any way to get word of this to the French? Can we warn them?”

“We haven’t the time.”

“Even in our plane?”

“Hildegard is a dear, and I’ve already fallen madly for her, but as soon as we approach the Front, her German markings will get us shot down by our own allies, and I don’t think painting a Union Jack on her wings is the answer.”

“Then what do we do?” She narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious. “You’ve already thought of a plan, haven’t you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“That look on your face.”

“I don’t have a look.” He couldn’t help but grin again. Sarah was alive, and now Alec sat on the floor beside a woman who compelled him in a way he was only now admitting to himself. He was in rare spirits. “I’m famous for my bold plans, you know.”

“Certainly. The last one almost got me killed.”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“I’m wearing another woman’s skirt because I’ve only one change of clothes to my name. I may be alive, but I’m also destitute.”

“That makes us two of a kind. But we’ll need to worry about our wardrobe later.”

She shifted just enough that she was facing him. “I’m listening.”

Alec paused for a few seconds. His idea might not sound so credible if he spoke it aloud.

“Say it,” she said.

“As you wish.” He nodded, mostly to himself. “Dear Hildegard is carrying a quartet of fifty-pound bombs in her egg basket. Those ack-ack emplacements are located outside the city, away from civilians. I plan to get her in the sky and bomb the shit out of those guns.”

Ellenor’s eyes widened at the thought. “You can do that?”

“Hildegard was born for it. And I was born to fly her.”

“That’s sounds awfully dramatic. Will it work?”

“It should. I mean, yes, of course it will work. But, um…”

“What?”

“Well, I have one small problem.”

“Yes?”

“The lever that releases the bombs isn’t located in the pilot’s cockpit.”

She slowly realized what he was implying. “The observer drops the bombs.”

He winked at her. “Indeed.”