Harald’s instructor, who taught them political education, clasped the pilot’s elbow◦– Harald had never seen him do it before, even with students. The students were always the picture of obedience; words, not even shouts, were enough with them.
The pilot tore himself away. To hell with you. To hell with your Führer. To hell with your Germany. To hell with your war…
Slipping on minced stones and rubble, he was backing away from them slowly; not out of fear but to say as much as he could before they would get hold of him again.
“Traitor of the Reich!” A shrill, still childish voice suddenly broke the spell, in which even the SS were ready to release him. He’d come to his senses eventually; even they understood that. But the boy, their own student whom they taught blind obedience, was already screaming far too loud for something of this sort to go unnoticed. “You ought to hang for treason! Ungrateful pig! The Führer gave you this!” The boy was shaking a fist, with the pilot’s discarded Cross clasped in it, like a judge of the People’s Court. “And how do you repay him?! Swine!”
“Stop it,” Harald muttered, feeling a sudden guilty blush burning him from inside out like a cleansing pyre of the inquisition. Even for him, this was too much, too shameful. “He’s a war hero…”
“He’s a treacherous swine that needs to be hanged!” The young boy turned to his superiors and clicked his heels. “Allow me to fetch the rope, Herr Untersturmführer?”
Harald’s instructor hesitated a split second but then pulled himself up, his face as unyielding as a wall. He only nodded and turned to Harald, who appeared as fearful and confused as him just a second ago. “Go help him. Make a sign.”
Harald saluted and turned on his heel before he knew what he was doing. It was drilled into him to the point where thinking for himself was not an option any longer and he could only follow through blindly and only curse the instructor in his mind, who still had the power to make decisions and chose to make a wrong one. But maybe it was too late for him too? Perhaps the instructor also couldn’t make any choices?
Harald stared idiotically at the piece of cardboard that his schoolmate, shorter and skinnier than him, thrust into his hands.
“Make the usual sign.” A can of black paint suddenly found its way into Harald’s hands as well. “‘I am a treacherous swine who committed treason against the Führer and the State.’”
Harald wrote it, in exemplary Gothic font, not comprehending what he was doing. How was the Luftwaffe fellow a treacherous swine? He was a war hero, like his brother… well, he did say something against the Führer, but so did Johann. And Willi. And his own father◦– only they did it quietly, away from everyone’s ears. But what if it was Harald, who would have lain there buried under that rubble together with his parents? What if Mina was there too? What if their new baby, his little nephew Gerd, was buried along with her? Wouldn’t Johann throw his Cross at the feet of the men, who guarded the regime that took it all away from him?
He stared at the sign in his hands and was suddenly very afraid of the answer.
“What are you doing there, screwing around with that sign?” The boy called out to him rudely. “It’s good enough to grace that swine’s neck.”
Harald noticed that the boy still had the Cross and was just about to put it into his pocket.
“What are you doing? It doesn’t belong to you!” He shouted, yanking on the ribbon.
“He lost his right for it after he threw it on the ground. I can have it now.”
Harald ignored his outstretched hand and marched back to the officer and his SS instructors. His teacher was busy yelling at the prisoners of war, as though the whole affair was their fault. He thrust the sign into the teacher’s hands avoiding looking at the pilot who was as blond and handsome as his brother. He’d calmed down, it appeared and was sitting, quiet and subdued, a bit aside from both the SS and the prisoners, not making any attempts to run, even when Harald’s classmate appeared before them with a rope in his hands. If anything, he seemed serene, relieved now.
“It’s yours.” Harald dropped the Cross into his lap and quickly stepped away, as though expecting the man to hit him.
The pilot looked at the award as if seeing it for the first time and handed it back to Harald. “You can have it. I won’t have any use for it soon.”
“My brother is in the Luftwaffe,” Harald said and regretted it at once.
“What’s your brother’s name?” The pilot tilted his head to one side, suddenly interested.
“Johannes Brandt. Hauptmann Brandt.”
A warm smile broke on the man’s face, transforming it from its grim mask into something beautiful, youthful.
“I had the honor of flying as his wingman once.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Do you know why? It’s such an embarrassing story…”
The SS man moved Harald out of the way and stood in front of the Luftwaffe fellow with a noose in his hands. “Walk over to that beam.”
Harald suddenly couldn’t breathe, only trailed, stumbling like a drunk man, after a grim procession.
“I served in JG-51; your brother◦– in JG-52,” the pilot continued meanwhile, looking over his shoulder and talking to Harald with a wonderful nonchalance about him, as though the two were on a stroll on a fine spring day and he had such an anecdote to tell him. “When he had just arrived, we didn’t think much of him. He spoke with that monotonous drawl, he looked like he was twelve, but already a Knight. I voiced my suspicions once to our Staffelkapitän, to the effect that Brandt’s victories weren’t genuine. That it was a trick of some sort; or that he was someone’s relative◦– I don’t know what else I said. We were drinking, you see… You say a lot of things when you drink.”
Harald’s instructor threw a rope over the beam and went to fetch a crate which stood among the ruins nearby. The pilot followed his movements with the same calm smile on his face, his hands in his pockets.
“Naturally, someone told your brother about my words. He went to the Group Commander and told him about it. The Group Commander knew of him; he flew with him once and saw him in action, so he knew perfectly well that your brother’s victories were genuine. So, he asked your brother what he wanted him, the Group Commander, to do about it. Do you know what your brother said? He said nothing. I only want Leutnant Baumann to fly as my wingman once. If that can be arranged, that is.”
Harald’s instructor settled the crate down and made sure it was steady. The pilot was still talking as the noose was being put around his neck. “Once I was in the air with him and once he got into it with the Ratas, I knew why they feared the Black Knight so. I’ve never seen a pilot of his talent! What ability, what strategy! I was thoroughly embarrassed once we landed. But he only shook my hand and smiled. A grand fellow, your brother is…”
Harald held his hand to help the officer on top of the crate.
“Give my Cross to him, if you see him again. As my apology…”
Harald’s teacher kicked the crate from under his feet. The pilot’s hand grasped Harald’s by sheer instinct; Harald held it until it went lifeless and limp and only let it go when his classmate stepped closer to put the sign onto the dead man’s neck. It only took a split second, a surprised gasp, the blood flowing freely from the boy’s broken nose, and two pieces of torn cardboard thrown onto the ground for Harald to feel suddenly free and strong again◦– for the first time in years.